Bakare, Falae, Musa, Others Back Shift In Election Date

Vice Presidential candidate of the Congress of Progressive Change, CPC, Pastor Tunde Bakare, former presidential candidate, Chief Olu Falae, former Governor of Kaduna State , Alhaji Balarabe Musa and other eminent Nigerians have backed the shift in the National Assembly election to Saturday 9 April.

After cancelling the election last weekend, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, fixed the election for today but later shifted it to Saturday after several political parties rejected today.

Speaking with P.M. NEWS this morning, Bakare said the INEC Chairman, Prof. Athahiru Jega should be encouraged rather than castigated, saying that he had done a good job.

“It is better to postpone the election than to have disaster but we insist on the current voting pattern already adopted, which is, no accreditation, no voting,” he stated.

Falae said, though INEC had a shaky start “we salute the courage of Jega for having the guts to postpone the election. But it would have been better for him to have discovered the flaws before the election was held at the weekend because many parties had spent so much money paying party agents.

“It is better that he cancelled the election than to have a flawed election,” he stated.

According to Balarabe Musa, “it is good that the election was postponed. This will give the parties more time to prepare but it must not happen again.”

Spokesman to the CPC presidential candidate, Mr. Yinka Odumakin said: “we accept the new date because it is better than rushing the election which will have created logistics problem for us.

“We are yet to hear the whole truth from Jega why the election was cancelled. We believe there are saboteurs in INEC working to ensure that our votes do not count. We urge INEC to be more vigilant and watch the forces trying to truncate the process.”

Publicity Secretary, Action Congress of Nigeria , ACN, Lagos State , Mr. Joe Igbokwe said INEC could be forgiven if it would do it right this time around, saying that there was no excuse for failure this time around.

“They said they were ready at the initial time but they were not. They now have one week to prepare and we are not ready for any excuse again on Saturday. They should ensure that the materials are in the right places.”

House of Representatives candidate for the CPC under Agege Federal Constituency, Otunba Niyi Raheem said it was unfortunate that “we can’t get it right in this country. It is a sad development.We don’t want to be the laughing stock of the whole world. We had six months to prepare but we messed up.”

Lagos lawyer, Festus Keyamo said since political parties had accepted the new date, it was okay by him.

However, constitutional lawyer, Prof. Itse Sagay said he was not comfortable with the presidential election being moved forward, saying that the National Assembly election and that of the president should have be done the same day.

“Since we have pushed the election forward, it will continue to create tension in the polity for a long time,” he said.

Also reacting to the cancellation of the polls at the weekend, the ACN House of Representatives candidate for the Eti-Osa Federal Constituency of Lagos, Hon. Jide Akinloye described the postponement as a very huge setback for the teeming electorate who had sacrificed their precious time and resources to express their franchise and only to be faced with a deluge of excuses which he described as unacceptable to Nigerians.

He wondered why Jega could be attributing the postponement to logistical issues despite the time and resources at his disposal, saying the shifting of the elections to Monday was an indication of failure on the part of the electoral commission.

Akinloye, however, charged Lagos residents and most importantly, the electorate in Eti-Osa Federal Constituency to be calm, focused and steady because the opportunity to freely exercise their rights will soon come.

—Kazeem Ugbodaga