Security chief urges vote delay, opposition refuse

Nigeria should delay next month’s elections to give organizers
more time to distribute millions of biometric ID cards to
voters, the country’s top security official said on Thursday.
Sambo Dasuki, President Goodluck Jonathan’s National
Security Adviser, said he had told the chairman of the
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that a
postponement within the three months allowed by the law
would be a good idea.
The main opposition coalition said it would oppose any
postponement, and the electoral commission said it had not
received any such official communication from Dasuki.
The elections, currently scheduled for Feb. 14, will be the first
where Nigeria’s 68.8 million voters must have a biometric
cards — a measure introduced to guard against fraud that has
plagued past polls.
But there have been technical glitches in data collection and
officials have not explained how they will hold the election in
parts of the northeast gripped by a violent uprising by Islamist
Boko Haram rebels.
How Africa’s biggest economy conducts this poll will be
closely watched by investors and foreign powers, amid the
uprising and an economic crisis linked to low oil prices.
Dasuki, speaking at London think-tank Chatham House, said
INEC had distributed 30 million cards in the past year but had
another 30 million to hand out.
He said INEC had assured him it would achieve this in time for
the February date, but he thought it would make more sense
to take more time and there was a 90-day window during
which the election could legally take place.
“It costs you nothing, it’s still within the law,” Dasuki said he
had told the INEC chairman.
Dasuki said it was for INEC and not for him to decide.
“Why are they not ready? Why should we postpone? We say
‘no’ to postponement,” Lai Mohammed, spokesman of the
opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), told Reuters.
“They know that if they don’t postpone they can’t win. They
are just terrified.”
INEC spokesman Kayode Idowu said there were currently no
plans to delay.
“It is not a conversation of the commission’s at all. As far as
we are talking now, the date is what it is,” Idowu said.
( REUTERS )