THE news came as a rude shock. It was the first time that an election already scheduled would be postponed after it had gone underway. All that could get wrong went wrong, despite assurances from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that all logistics were in place and the personnel trained and mobilised ahead of the election.
On Friday, 24 hours to the election, the INEC chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega was on air to assure Nigerians that the commission had learnt needed lessons from previous elections and nothing would go wrong. He said materials would be in about 8,900 wards to ensure that all materials got to the polling units very early yesterday.
It was a different experience at the polls yesterday as all Nigerians who had believed the commission and trusted the words of its chairman were disappointed as there were no officials and materials to handle, first, the accreditation, and then the actual voting.
When reality dawned on INEC, Prof. Jega was forced to acknowledge that there was no way forward. He told a stunned nation that the election that would have produced 109 senators and 360 representatives had been shifted by 48 hours. Adducing reasons for the action, Jega said contractors disappointed them by failing to supply materials by Thursday evening.
The commission not only disappointed Nigerians, it embarrassed a nation that had been made to believe that the days of shoddy preparations from elections and flawed polls were over. In the comity of nations, including African countries that had got their acts together, the impression that Nigeria is a giant in name only persists following the Jega performance.
Jega, analysts have contended, failed a country that believed in his abilities. The planning was definitely poor and shows that he needs help to deliver on the onerous duty he has been saddled with. However, many other Nigerians, while acknowledging that he had taken a wrong foot forward, said he should be given another chance. They have commended his candour in accepting responsibility for the poor outing and halting the move that would have returned the country to where it was in 2007.
He is said to have taken a very difficult decision, knowing that it could only lead to denunciation by all. The decision could only have stemmed from a desire to get it right at all cost, irrespective of the cost to his personal standing in the eyes of the public.
Whatever the reasons given, what happened and how it happened, the most important issue at this point is, what happened? A number of Nigerians are already calling for Jega’s resignation. This could be a hasty decision that would lead nowhere. If jega leaves the scene now or is dropped, where would that lead Nigerians? A new chairman would need more time to prepare and more money voted for new ways of doing the same thing without an assurance that there would be improvement.
This is a time for all Nigerians to come together and act as patriots; support INEC to overcome the logistics challenges. It must be acknowledged that exercises requiring proper planning have always ended in fiasco. At no time since independence has the country succeeded in conducting credible, free, fair, just and acceptable polls. Other exercises like census have always led, in similar fashion, to disputes.
On Monday, Jega and his commission have another chance. He should realise that the benefit of the doubt that he enjoys now stems from his antecedents. There is a limit to which that could carry him. This is the time to get things right and move the country forward.
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Jega’s painful but courageous move