The insecurity In The North-east Has Offered INEC A Lifeline - Resident Electoral Commissioner

A resident electoral commissioner from one of the northern states in Nigeria has admitted that the shift in election dates has been a blessing in disguise for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The resident electoral commissioner further added that INEC had been unprepared to conduct elections in the country had the February 14 presidential election not been shifted to March 28, 2015.

"... the insecurity in the North-east has offered INEC a lifeline to get its act together and sort out most, if not all, pending issues before the polls start on March 28," he said.

"We were far from being ready and had we proceeded with our state of unpreparedness in February, we would have faced greater challenges than what we encountered during the 2011 general election when we were forced to postpone the elections by two weeks.

"The training manual is not ready while simulations for the card readers have not been conducted. Our personnel and ad hoc staff do not know how to use the card readers, and some that have been tested were not working.

"Apart from this, over 23 million registered voters had not picked up their cards; that is about 34 per cent of registered voters. So were we going to disenfranchise them under the pretext that not all of them would vote?

In a related development, the National Security Advisor (NSA) Sambo Dasuki has promised that elections will not be postponed past March 28, saying that Boko Haram fighters who forced the delay would be defeated within the coming six weeks.

"Those dates will not be shifted again," Dasuki said when asked if the polls, which had been initially scheduled for February 14, could be pushed back further.

Asked if the militants can be defeated by election day, Dasuki said "all known Boko Haram camps will be taken out. They won't be there. They will be dismantled".

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