Facts emerged, yesterday, suggesting that Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, was grappling with problems which may have compelled it to postpone the February 14, 2015, presidential election, had the National Security Adviser, NSA, Colonel Sambo Dasuki, not publicly called on the electoral body to consider the option of postponement.

This is authoritative.

Sunday Vanguard was made to understand in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, that the INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, had summoned an emergency meeting of Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, penultimate week, to review the Commission’s preparedness for the election, as well as look into areas requiring urgent attention.

Conscious of legal latitude, INEC was said to have called an emergency meeting to review its operations on Monday, January 26, 2015, with the notice sent out a week earlier, based on the executive assessment of readiness for the election by its Board. The assessment by INEC’s Board had identified some challenges with meeting deadlines and was going to share it with the wider body of policy implementers who also had their concerns based on their field assessment on the level of preparedness. Given this background, all the Commission’s stakeholders were shocked to hear the NSA make reference to possible postponement without consulting with the electoral body.

And whereas an INEC insider disclosed to Sunday Vanguard that “but for the statement of the NSA which they claimed gave a colouration of politics to the issue, INEC was possibly going to make its own independent adjustment to the time-table, to avert a repeat of the postponement of election after already deploying personnel and materials as was the case in 2011 when there was a shift from 2 April till Thursday the 4th and again shifted to the 9th of April – that postponement was necessitated by the failure of contractors to meet supply schedules”, another source within the Commission made Sunday Vanguard to understand that indeed the NSA may have been doing his job innocently, “the Commission Chairman was already adamant just as was the case in 2011 when the nation was sent on a wild goose chase only to return to the path of sanity by eventually postponing the election”.

The latter source further insisted that the NSA with his bird’s-eye view of the security situation in the country may have just attempted to try to try to shield the Commission from public opprobrium regarding the laxity to effectively distribute PVCs since last year by pre-empting the issue of postponement.

Sunday Vanguard was made to understand that that issue is still one of the key challenges identified by the INEC Board assessment.

Another technical problem that is emerging include the fact that although the electoral body, on its part, has placed orders for the production of ballot papers, it was restrained by the legal window which was tied to the outcome of the party primaries and the window for substitution of candidates which only terminated on December 30, 2014.

After the primaries and substitution were done, the Commission had to compile the outcomes and confirm with the parties, as indicated by development of January 26, 2015, which saw INEC, through a press release, dropping some parties candidates for not meeting the legal requirements of Section 187 of the constitution, with reference to nomination of running mates for the gubernatorial election.

By that development, it was clear that the Commission’s final list of parties involved in the election and their candidates was only just being finalised, and therefore “the Commission could not have ordered for definitive ballot papers without such crucial information”.

“Taking the latter development into account”, the usually dependable INEC source continued, “it means that the production of the ballot papers was only just ordered. This is a process which is outside the full scheduling control of INEC. Caught between legal constraints from the Electoral Act and Constitution, as well as the technical challenges from contractors engaged with the production of ballot papers, result sheets, electoral forms and envelopes that are currently being customized, to enhance the fidelity of the process, and the inability of politicians to move them from one polling area to another, INEC is currently faced with a heavy burden to meet the February 14 date, without organizing a shambolic election”. More at http://chriseze..com