Legal icon and elder statesman, Professor Ben Nwabueze, SAN, has lamented the postponement of the Presidential and National Assembly elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
The legal luminary noted that the move had compromised the credibility of the elections.
DAILY POST reported that INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, had few hours to the polls, last Saturday, announced its postponement by one week.
The electoral body cited logistics challenges as reason for the shift.
However, Prof Nwabueze faulted the postponement in a statement entitled: “Consequences and Implications of The One-Week Postponement of The 2019 General Elections,” he signed and made available to reporters on Tuesday.
He said that announcing the postponement “four hours or so before the time scheduled for it, has not only compromised or undermined the credibility of the elections whenever they are held, but has also brought forcibly to the fore the truth that INEC is not truly an independent electoral umpire, contrary to the word ‘independent’ in its name.
”In an Address to a meeting of stakeholders on the same day the postponement was announced, Professor Mahmuod eloquently pleaded logistical and other problems as the reasons for the postponement.
“But the central issue raised by the postponement concerns the consequences and implications which the postponement has for the credibility of the elections, whenever they are held, not the reasons for it (i.e. postponement).
“The postponement has created so much suspicion in the minds of millions of Nigerians, and so much questioning as to what is the real reason for it, and what are the unseen forces manipulating INEC.
”More specifically, the question Nigerians are asking is whether it is really possible that such a grave decision, as the postponement of the General Election, affecting the vital interests of the country, its domestic as well as global interests, and involving huge financial and other costs, could have been taken by a so-called independent electoral commission four hours before the time scheduled for it, without reference to, and without the knowledge and at least acquiescence of, the President of the country. If it is possible, then, anything is possible in Buhari’s Nigeria.”
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