The postponement of the presidential and National Assembly elections barely four hours to scheduled time is a monumental show of shame, gross embarrassment, compounded disgrace and most humiliating and damaging to our national image.
This is made worst by the air of callousness, casualness and flimsiness that punctuates the text that convey this most grievous, disingenuous and thoughtless decision.
It will be recalled that the presidential and National Assembly elections are held in Nigeria every four years. This simply means that INEC has four solid years to plan, organize and conduct this very important national event.
This was why it was very heartwarming when INEC almost two years ago came up with time schedule for the exercise. At every point from then till 3am this morning, INEC had assured everyone who cared to listen that it was more than ready for the elections.
The emptiness of the boast came to the fore at a very expensive cost when it was discovered just 5 hours to the elections that INEC had logistics problems (whatever that means) forcing the postponement of the elections.
But how can INEC have logistics challenges when it had enough time to plan the elections.
How can INEC had logistics challenges when the budget for the 2019 elections is the highest in the country since 1999. What is really the meaning of logistics in this context? Is it the inability to know the number of voters, voting units, their locations, the printing of elections materials, the transportation of same to the different locations?
Can this be a reasonable excuse given the fact that INEC had more than enough time to carry out and execute all of these very ordinary, very predictable responsibilities?
I believe that this decision has negatively advertised, exposed and de-marketed us as a nation. It has shown how irresponsible the managers of our nation at this moment are.
It has betrayed and reconfirmed the calamity that has befallen us in the last four years.
It will be recalled that few days ago, news came online that the office of the NSA had issued an advice to the presidency to postpone the elections ostensibly to avert an impending defeat. It is therefore impossible to separate the postponement of the elections under this very questionable and unjustifiable circumstances barely 5 hours to the scheduled time from this fear of defeat. I am convinced that Prof. Yakubu must have come under sphere pressure from the presidency to embark on this most ignoble, noxious and most demeaning decision. This is more because it is most implacable and implausible for failure of logistics to sustain this postponement.
It is time for the Buhari/APC administration to come to an end. This government has brought untold embarrassment, disappointment and national shame to this country in more ways that can’t be mentioned. This government has taken us more than fifty (50) years backward. This govt is a complete disaster in every material particular.
This postponement is one of too many harassing embarrassments. It is the most expensive jokes and ridicules this government has wrought on our national psyche, pride and corporate identity.
This postponement may have achieved the aim of postponing the humiliating defeat of Buhari for 7 days but it certainly will not avert the doom on 23/01/19. This is a debt he must pay as Nigeria and Nigerians can’t afford another of Buhari’s four years in power.
This postponement comes with very high cost both in financial, socio-economic and psychologic terms.
It is not as simple and innocuous as INEC wants us to believe. The nation will pay dearly for it. The candidates and their political parties have been wrecked financially, economically, spiritually and psychologically.
This decision has made the political system just like any other aspect of our national life under the Buhari’s government most unpredictable, most uncertain and plagued.
It is indeed a show of shame that the culprits, INEC and the Buhari’s presidency must be made to pay for.
_Emmanuel Enoidem is the National Legal Adviser of PDP_
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of writing at at this time.