A former Minister of State for Defence, Chief Demola Seriki, has blamed the Independent National Electoral Commission for the delays and general lapses experienced across the country on Saturday during the national elections.
Seriki, who spoke to The PUNCH in Surulere, Lagos said that the performance of INEC had fallen below the expectations of Nigerians.
He said, “In my own ward, it was peaceful and followed due process as expressed in the Electoral Act. However, in many areas based on reports we received from those areas, they had not received materials as at after 11am. This is a line of disenfranchisement and INEC must correct this anomaly.
“In all fairness, (President Goodluck) Jonathan provided all logistics; fulfilled his own part of the deal because (Prof. Attahiru) Jega did not complain about anything. If he had any handicap he ought to have let the public know. Instead he had continually expressed contrary views stating that they (INEC) were ready.
“If materials could not arrive in cosmopolitan areas like Lekki, Magodo by almost midday, what could have happened in places in the creeks of Delta, Rivers, Ondo and even in Takwa Bay in Lagos?”
Even though the former minister of state for Foreign Affairs decried the slow start by INEC, he argued that postponing the elections did not make much difference.
“It wouldn’t have been worse than this. The elections were not postponed for the reasons given. The Boko Haram group have not truly been wiped out because they are still operating in some of the areas. There had to be a shift for other reasons. In some other countries incidents could force some areas not to vote and so if just some councils out of 774 local government areas could not vote for security reasons it could not affect the entire process. Obama won the elections before they could count the Florida votes.
“The postponement was meant to help INEC but it has not. They didn’t take any advantage.”
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