Saturday elections in Nigeria have turned out an anti-climax as the electoral body, INEC, has agreed to postpone the polls due largely to logistics defects. As at press time, INEC has gone far into the meeting of commissioners and other key persons with a preliminary resolution to shift the polls to take care of outstanding issues including getting enough card readers to Anambra and Abia States where fire razed INEC offices and destroyed the card readers and other materials.
Less than 24 hours to the polls, some states were yet to receive the requisite sensitive materials. This triggered a negative signal prompting INEC management to go into an emergency meeting. Though no official statement had been made but inside sources hinted at a postponement as the consensus among the INEC commissioners.
Meantime, INEC in Niger State on Friday said that elections for the senatorial positions of Niger East and Niger North may not hold on Saturday as the ballot papers meant for the zone were missing.
Prof. Samuel Egwu, Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the state, made the declaration while interacting with newsmen in Minna.
“The issue has been reported to the INEC’s Headquarters in Abuja for urgent attention.
“The officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria saddled with the responsibility of securing the electoral sensitive materials have gone to Abuja for the last batch of the sensitive materials for Saturday’s elections in the state, so we are waiting,’’ he said.
Egwu said that 85 per cent of the needed facilities for the conduct of free and fare elections in the state had been provided with the non sensitive materials already moved to various destinations across the 25 local government areas of the state.
He said that the commission trained 23,000 ad hoc staff for the elections in the state.
The REC also said that 2,181,400 eligible voters would participate during the general elections in the state.
