The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), on Saturday, said it was shocked by the postponement of the 2019 General Elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), saying it expected that the commission would have learnt from the 2011, 2019 election experiences.
The CDD, in a statement from its Election Analysis Centre (EAC) in Abuja signed by the Director, Idayat Hassan, and Prof. Adele Jinadu who leads the EAC, said it recognised that elections represent a huge logistical challenge.
“INEC announced in the early hours of the morning that presidential and parliamentary elections due today would be rescheduled to next Saturday, while gubernatorial and state houses of assembly elections scheduled for March 2 would be shifted to March 9.
“Our surprise stems from repeated reassurances from INEC that it was fully ready to conduct the elections and that there was no possibility of postponement,” the EAC said in a statement signed by the director of CDD Idayat Hassan and Prof. Adele Jinadu who leads the EAC.
“We recognise that elections represent a huge logistical challenge, particularly as the 2019 elections is the largest in Nigeria’s history and the largest in Africa. However, we were hopeful that lessons from the 2011 and 2015 elections would have been learnt by 2019,” it said.
It called on INEC to ensure it takes urgent steps to reassure Nigerian and the international community that it will be ready to conduct free, fair and credible elections on the new dates.
The CDD, however, said that it was worried that certain sensitive materials had already been deployed in various parts of the country and urged INEC to urgently affirm to the public that these materials would be safe.
“We hope that INEC will take advantage of the extra time provided by the postponement of the elections to rapidly and robustly address any weaknesses in project management, logistics management and public communication,” it said.
According to CDD, there is an urgent need to re-energise Nigerians to turn out to vote so as to avoid voter apathy, and we call on civil society and the media to assist in this process.
“Finally, it is asking Nigerians to not allow the postponement to stop them from turning out to cast their votes next week.
“We also urge all members of the international community to keep faith with the Nigerian electoral process and to continue to support Nigeria in preserving what is, this year, twenty continuous years of democratic rule in Nigeria,” the organisation concluded.
*Photo: INEC Chairman
