They did not expect it, but it happened. All plans meticulously put in place for society weddings scheduled for today across the country may have been put on hold.
From Ibadan to Lagos, to other towns and cities, the sudden shift of the Presidential and National Assembly elections last week to today dashed the hopes of would-be brides and grooms.
In the early hour of last Saturday, Nigerians rose to the shocking news of postponement of elections. Today, however, the story may be different as the electorate go out to vote.
But like many other Nigerians who were affected by the postponed elections, Medina Akanbi and her life mate (name withheld) are still bearing the brunt of the poll shift. The lovebirds had set to tie their wedding knots today, but the plan was thwarted by the one week shift in elections date. Eversince last week, they have been agitating over the decision.
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They had invested much time and other resources in ensuring that their plans for today became a reality. Since the beginning of the year, families and friends had waited with bated breath to share their day of joy with them as preparations heightened. Reception venue had been booked and other logistics met since January preparatory to the date. And as the day drew closer, invitations were circulated and souvenirs were dated.
However, as experienced by many others who had earlier fixed their events for today, Akande’s dream of taking her nuptial flight today had been crushed as a result of the presidential and National Assembly elections.
As the electorate turns out to exercise their civic responsibility across the nation today, the bride-to-be nurses silent anger against the decision that obstructed her plans.
Her only choice is to wait patiently for her new wedding date. The bride’s sister, Mrs Kubrat Babayomi, said the families were ruffled by the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission on the shift in elections date from February 16 to 23, “but really there was nothing we could do since Nigeria is greater than any of us. National interest supercedes personal interest so we took it in good faith.
“But indeed, the decision by INEC really upset our plans and brought additional cost on us. First, it affected the couple because for them, so many things were attached to the day. And for us as family members, we have to meet on a new date and start calling invited guests to inform them about the new date. In my own case, for instance, I have to go back to the person handling the gift items to change the date written on them”.
Among those whose wedding plans were affected by today’s elections are Babatunde Oke, Olumide Komolafe and a man who was simply identified as Joshua. The three intending husbands were among the eight people who had applied to wed at the marriage registry in Ibadan Southwest Local Government, Oluyole today. Saturday Tribune gathered that all but one of the eight applicants, with their partners, had shifted their wedding ceremonies to new dates.
Joshua, who was at the registry on Tuesday to change the date of his wedding, was said to have been so upset about the decision to shift the exercise to today saying that the Nigeria had failed him and his fiancee for encroaching on their wedding plan. Joshua said he was disappointed in INEC for failing to keep to the earlier date and thereby altering citizens’ plans.
According to him, it is not safe to shift the wedding by just one week because the spillover of the elections may distort programmes that are fixed for close dates. An official of the registry, who spoke to Saturday Tribune on the condition of anonymity, said: “Understandably, those who were affected by the decision of INEC to shift the presidential and National Assembly elections to February 23 are really not finding it easy because it affected their logistics in many ways.
“Many of them had taken a date that they considered as convenient for them and their minds were set on it. It can be disturbing to discover that their plans had been upset just a week to the set date. It is a rude shock and one can understand why most of them were furious. One of them (Joshua) was apparently destabilised as he kept complaining about the development. He decided to step down the plan till April”.
An official of the marriage registry in Ibadan Northwest Local Government who spoke anonymously, disclosed that unlike the case in the Southwest local government, only one wedding was initially fixed for February 23 at the registry. She said: “The only person who was affected at the registry here had since come to change the date of his wedding to March 2.
“He said he was adversely affected by the shift and he expressed his grievances. In a case like this, most of those having ceremonies would have printed invitation cards for the events. But for the young man in question, he quickly made up his mind to move on with life. There are complaints by many people about their frustrations as a result of the postponement, but then what can anybody do?”
Despite their frustrations, many of those who had intended to wed today before the shift in the election date was announced by INEC have decided to accept the hard reality and reschedule their ceremonies. However, some are considering possible prosecution of INEC for what they described as its arbitrary decision.
For instance, Caleb Olobade has vowed that he would engage the electoral umpire in a legal battle. Olabode, who said he had already sent out his wedding invitation cards dated February 23 to friends and families several weeks before the postponement of today’s elections, said the action of the commission betrayed lack of seriousness and gross insensitivity to the plights of the citizens.
Olabode said he fixed the date of his wedding four months ago saying: “I received the news of the postponement of the Presidential and National Assembly elections with shock and confusion. At first, I was wondering that such could not happen to me.
“We can’t start producing new invitation cards and informing our guests of the sudden change in date. We had spent money on food items, hotel and hall in preparation for our wedding party”.
But, apart from wedding ceremonies that were affected, other social events as well as the economy in general were affected by the postponement. For instance, analysts had argued that critical steps such as closure of boarders, halt in activities at the oil installations, shut down of commerce and other sensitive sectors have serious economic implications on the nation, especially considering the fact that the country is just coming out of recession.
As part of its 30th anniversary programme, Christ Life Church had scheduled the Precious Cornerstone University’s Music Festival in affiliation with DOHAL Foundation and vigil for today, February 23 giving it wide publicity in the media. But, the anniversary of global scale could not hold as a result of the poll.
The Programme Director of DOHAL Foundation, Mrs Oluwafunmilayo Ajibulu, said it was lamentable that the widely publicised programme of the church slated for today could not hold. According to her, apart from the media advertisement, the church had printed and circulated a large number of posters, programme of events and handbills to sensitise the public on the programme. “Huge cost went into the programme; leading gospel artistes like Tope Alabi; Nathaniel Bassey and clerics like Pastor Andrew Adeleke were invited from the United Kingdom but we were interrupted by the postponement of the elections for one week.”
As a result of this, the programme has been postponed to new dates in the month of March.
Meanwhile, economists have said that the losses suffered as a result of the postponement of the elections was worsened by the fact that the decision was taken on election day. They noted that many people had travelled long distance. A Political Science lecturer at Caleb University, Lagos, Dr Kayode Adetoyi, said he had to travel from Lagos to Ila Orangun, his country home in Osun State for the purpose of the elections.
He expressed shock about the postponement of the poll which, he said, he heard of in the early hours of last week Saturday.
As done today, organisations like banks, insurance firms, manufacturing companies and stockbrokerage firms among others had to shut down temporarily on Saturday, February 16.
Experts say the associated costs of closure of business activities cannot be easily quantified. Considering the output of the Nigerian economy as reflected in the nominal Gross Domestic Product figure of N127.76tn for the 2018 fiscal year as released by the National Bureau of Statistics, it suggested that the economy may have lost over N350bn in just one day due to the poll postponement.
While expressing his view on the shift in the elections date, the governorship candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in Oyo State, Hakeem Alao said: “The postponement of the elections was shocking to me because it caught me unawares. One would have thought that the same lapses witnessed in 2011 and 2015 would not occur again in our electoral process, but, we were proved wrong.
“Upon reflection however, I came to a conclusion that we are still in the process of getting things right electorally and we can only appeal to ourselves to see the temporary setback as a means of getting better or what profit would it serve to have gone ahead as scheduled and come up with a sham?
“The development calls for a high sense of patriotism on the part of every stakeholder, bearing in mind that Nigeria is our country and we have no other country we can call our own. We need to repose confidence in our system while the umpire does the utmost to ensure that such confidence is not misplaced”.
Former governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, said: “I said it two days ago that they were considering postponement of the elections because they knew that they can’t win. Now I have been vindicated. With this postponement, they have only succeeded in making their situation worse. Nigerians will defeat this tyranny ultimately”.
In a statement in Abuja last Saturday, the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria encouraged Nigerians to support INEC to conduct free, fair, peaceful and credible elections, saying: “U.S. Embassy fully supports the joint statement by the heads of the ECOWAS and other international election observation missions on the postponement of the Feb.16 Nigerian elections.
“We join in encouraging all Nigerians to ensure a free, fair, peaceful, and credible election by supporting the Independent National Electoral Commission while it finalises electoral preparations this week and by voting in peace together on Feb. 23”.
and then