At last, the Independent National Electoral Commission announced a postponement of the scheduled elections late Saturday night in Abuja. To many, it came as a surprise but to some of us, it did not. The whole issue of a possible shift in the elections had been in the works for a while. In fact, the National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.), either deliberately or inadvertently let the cat out of the bag in an interactive session at the United Kingdom-based international think tank, Chatham House.
Later, it became obvious that forces within Nigeria's ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party, and the Presidency were the major factors behind the call for postponement. At a point, some two sets of protesters appeared in Abuja carrying placards supporting or opposing the rumoured shift before it came to public glare.
I do not want to comment on the mood of the INEC Chairman, Prof Attahiru Jega, during the well-publicised press conference. Neither will I bother about the reported divided responses from participants after the presentations of the security agencies to the Council of State a few days earlier.
It was obvious that the learned teacher had been under intense pressure and was in a clear helpless situation. He looked very frustrated and angry. He tried very hard to convey to Nigerians that the electoral commission that he heads was sufficiently prepared and logistically ready to conduct the elections but for the negative security reports from the security agencies. He relied on Section 26 Subsection 1 of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended which refers to a possible breach of security, natural disaster and emergency as possible reasons upon which an election could be postponed. The said section emphasised that such evidence must be cogent and verifiable before the elections can be postponed.
Many observers do not think that the current situation in Nigeria deserves the invocation of that section of our law. Jega referred to a letter from the military informing INEC of planned attacks on Boko Haram insurgents for an initial period of six weeks insisting that they will be unable to guarantee the security of INEC, its ad hoc staff, voters and observers during the period. The commission was, therefore, literally forced to shift the elections to March 28, and April 11 with obvious and interesting implications.
I will not comment on the fact that the insurgents are currently localised only in 14 out of the 774 Local Government Areas of the country at the moment. These are known territories where insurgents have literally taken over and imposed their own government. I will not also bother to speak about other countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Syria which have been in war but managed to conduct their elections. What we are experiencing in the North-East does not in any way come to any of those mentioned.
Let us, for the sake of argument, agree that our military are telling the country the truth about their planned attacks. Now, I am not a security man and may lack the expertise to comment on what can be seen as a clear national security issue. However, I wish to raise a few questions for Nigerians to reflect over as we review the consequences of the postponement on our already over-heated body polity.
The first question is whether the Nigerian military will be able to confront and defeat Boko Haram insurgents in the next six weeks to enable the elections to hold. The second is whether they need all the military personnel in the country for that effort to succeed. The third is to find out why they waited until one week to the elections before they decided to go for an onslaught against the insurgents.
The reluctance of our military to confront the insurgents over the past few months or even years has been well-documented. There have been claims and counter-claims of government connivance, incompetence, culpable negligence, corruption, poor motivation and sabotage leading to embarrassing casualties on the side of the Nigerian forces. Yes, the same of ECOMOG fame! The few successful operations have been to repel the attacks of the insurgents when they advanced to annex new territories but surprising not without the help of hunters and the Civilian Joint Task Force.
Now, the curious issue is that the supposed locations of these insurgents were said to be known all the while. From the Sambissa Forest, the insurgents attacked Bama, Gwoza, Chibok, Konduga and even attempted unsuccessfully to take over Maidugiri. The Nigerian military have only been on the defensive and scarcely went on the offensive even when the locations and later territories of the insurgents were all known.
Even other armies from our neighbours like Cameroon and Chad started successfully attacking locations of the insurgents in their countries with very impressive results and in one or two instances actually coming into Nigeria's territory to liberate towns under insurgents' control.
The Nigerian Army was rather reported to have made "tactical manoeuvres" unsuccessfully defending or liberating Nigerian territory currently held by the insurgents. Was that a deliberate strategy? When did the army change it to now going on the offensive and why did it take them this long to do so? Why did they suddenly abandon their defensive method to go offensive? Why did they choose the period of the elections? Was it just a "technical" military response or something more? Is the threat of Boko Haram new or amplified? What is really going on?
From the body language of Jega, it is clear that he is as curious as most Nigerians of the sudden position of the military. The electoral umpire tried to, nay, did indeed convey that neither he nor the commission should be held responsible for the current situation with the elections. The comment of the National Security Adviser in London makes the whole issue look more complicated and actually appears as a well-rehearsed plot of sabotage rather than a decision based on any military or security exigency.
The reference to Section 26 of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended is hazy, ambiguous and unjustifiable at this time. What is clear to everyone is that INEC was very well-prepared for the elections which, itself, promised to be one of the most fought over contests in the recent political history in Nigeria. Who then is afraid of contest? What if by any reason (as may be the case) that Boko Haram insurgency is not defeated in six weeks? Does that mean that the elections would not hold again on the rescheduled dates of March 28 and April 11? Does that not imply that the sacrosanct May 29 handover date will now be tampered with? What if Jega's tenure comes to a tail-end such that he will now proceed on terminal leave pending the expiration of his tenure? Will a new person be appointed?
Will Nigerians transfer the level of confidence they have so far reposed in Jega to such a person? What will be the implications on the work done already? Is there someone out there who thinks that a postponement will confer an advantage to one of the contending parties in the elections as rumoured by many? Is there someone out there who is bent on playing a political game outside the applicable rules? Is there someone out there who wants to plunge Nigeria into chaos because of a clearly selfish ambition?
Are there people in Nigeria currently celebrating this postponement? Are our security agencies in any way complicit or privy to any plot to manipulate the democratic process or are they just defending our country as patriots? Does this not amount to moving the goalpost in the middle of a game? Will the 2015 elections ever hold?
*Opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author, Uche Igwe.
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