TheCable

Threats by military authorities that they could not guarantee security for the conduct of the general election forced the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to shift the polls, TheCable has been informed.

Although the electoral commission listed several reasons for taking the decision at its meeting with 28 political parties on Saturday, TheCable understands that the overriding factor was the subtle threat by the security chiefs.

At the meeting of the National Council of State on Thursday, senior military chiefs had said Nigeria’s security agencies were overstretched because of the scaling-up of the war against Boko Haram involving the country’s neighbouring countries.

Four states in the north-east are currently affected by the insurgency — Borno, Yobe, Adamawa and Gombe.

Sources told TheCable that Attahiru Jega, the INEC chairman, had assured the security chiefs that the commission would be ready for the polls, initially slated for February 14 and 28, and there would be no need to shift the dates.

Although there are genuine concerns over the uncollected PVCs as well as the ones that are yet to be printed, Jega said the commission was still determined to go ahead with the polls in order not to create a political crisis in the country.

At a meeting with the INEC commissioners on Tuesday, Jega had discussed the possibility of postponing the elections in order for the commission to get its act together.

He also told them he would rather the election was postponed and INEC did a better job than for the electoral umpire’s reputation to be ruined for holding on to an unrealistic timetable.

But the commissioners gave him the go-ahead to hold the elections as scheduled, and he addressed the National Council of State, made of of former heads of state and the 36 state governors, on Thursday assuring all that INEC was set for the elections.

At the meeting, the military chiefs made it very clear that they were not ready, but the council resolved that INEC should go ahead and discharge its “civic responsibility” without taking any specific position.

Although soldiers are not needed for the conduct of the elections since it is a civil matter that the police are trained to handle, the post-election violence of 2011 which claimed over 800 lives is being factored into security projections for the 2015 polls.

“One of the security chiefs said all that the soldiers would normally do is to escort the materials to the various destinations and then withdraw, but the possibility of protests and riots is high and this could lead to a total breakdown that the police may not be able to contain,” an INEC official told TheCable.

Jega was caught in a dilemma when he was plainly told that the military would play no part in the security arrangement if the election was not moved by at least six weeks “in the first instance” to allow the operations against Boko Haram to be concluded, TheCable learnt.

“They told him that it is in the national interest and INEC’s interest to hold elections in all the states of the federation, which can only be done if the Boko Haram insurgents are completely incapacitated in those states,” the source said.

There are also constitutional issues — particularly the validity of a presidential election in which four states do not participate.

Jega was also told that a legal action may be instituted against INEC if it goes ahead with the polls and this could further plunge the country into a prolonged political and constitutional impasse.

However, the leading opposition party, All Progressives Congress (APC), is not amused by the twist in the tale after INEC had promised several times that the elections would not be moved.

The party believes that the postponement is to slow down the momentum of the opposition as well as give President Goodluck Jonathan some space to buy time.

Sambo Dakusi, a retired colonel and the national security adviser, hinted at a possible shift in dates weeks ago in London when he said he had advised INEC to move the polls because of the chaos over PVC distribution.

After their meeting with Jega and his national commissioners, the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room (Situation Room), a network of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working in support of credible and transparent elections in Nigeria, confirmed to TheCable that Jega received a letter from the security services advising the postponement of the elections on the grounds that the security agencies were engaged in a renewed battle against insurgency in the north-east that would require their full concentration.

The group expressed its disappointment with the letter, saying it amounted to the military’s abdication of its constitutional duties to provide security to citizens and to the commission to enable it conduct elections and appeared contrived to truncate the country’s democratic process.