Real reasons emerged on Saturday on why the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) postponed the February 16 and March 2 elections.
Chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmud Yakubu, in the early hours of Saturday, announced the postponement of the February 16 and March 2 elections citing logistic reasons.
Sources close to INEC, however, told Sunday Tribune that besides the logistic reasons cited by Yakubu, some forces in the polity had also planned to force INEC to conduct a staggered election.
The plan, according to sources, was to ensure that INEC was forced to announce postponement of the polls in at least 12 states, owing to failure of the officials to deliver the sensitive items meant for the conduct of the elections in those states.
“A fait accompli verdict was going to be handed over to INEC by which it would have no choice but to postpone the elections in states like Anambra, Abia, Enugu, Edo, Oyo, Niger, Benue, Plateau, Ondo and Osun,” the source said.
It was learnt that the incidents of arson that took place in INEC offices in Abia, Anambra and Plateau had disorganised the commission’s distribution of Card Readers to the extent that a number of states could no longer boast of a full complement of Card Readers.
It was leant that only 13 local governments out of 21 in Anambra could get some of the Card Readers while there were no back-ups in any of those councils.
It was learnt that whereas the chairman of INEC was busy assuring the nation that his commission was ready for the election, some members of staff of the commission were also busy planning to frustrate the election in league with some external forces who wanted a staggered election to forestall a possible defeat for a political party.
It was learned that the idea of a staggered election was already discussed with Yakubu, but that he rejected the idea and insisted that such a move would go against Section 134 of the 1999 Constitution which sees the entire Nigeria as a single constituency for the presidential election.
It was leant that following the refusal of the key leaders of the INEC Election Management Board to comply with the option of staggered presidential elections, the forces decided to reach a number of staff of the commission, who were said to have colluded in frustrating the delivery of sensitive items at the different states of the federation.
It was further learnt that some staff of the commission in the know about the plan to frustrate the election had taken delivery of their side of the assignments with levity, even as some of them were said to have also muddled up the accreditation of local and international observers.
Some observer teams, which submitted 50 names got only 15 accreditation cards, while one of the observer teams complained that some of their of observers had their identities muddled up to the extent that one name was issued four cards, even though only a fraction of the required cards was given.
It was also learnt that some government agencies were also asked not to cooperate with INEC on the planned seamless delivery of materials from their vaults.
A source said that some aircraft conveying INEC materials to parts of South-East and South-South were said to have returned to base in Abuja without landing at the destinations, claiming they could not land due to bad weather.
It was also learnt that INEC chairman knew of the enormity of the laxity of distribution of sensitive materials at about 2 p.m. on Friday and that he immediately called a meeting of all National Commissioners, which started at 6 p.m.
The meeting lasted till the early hours of Saturday after which Yakubu announced the postponement of the elections.