TheCable

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has denied a Reuters report claiming that Nigeria may delay the February 14 presidential election if voter card distribution is too low.

The report quoted Amina Zakari, an INEC national commissioner, as saying on the sidelines of a news conference that the election could be delayed if the number of permanent voter cards distributed by February 8 is too low.

But reacting on behalf of the commission, Kayode Idowu, chief press secretary to the INEC chairman, “refuted” the story,  saying Zakari made no such statement either at the conference or on its sidelines.

“I write to refute your story in Reuters attributing national commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Amina Zakari, as saying that the 2015 general elections may be delayed if the number of Permanent Voter Cards collected by voters is too low,” Idowu wrote in a mail to the American news agency.

“I was at the Situation Room Dialogue with INEC in Abuja this morning and I know that the commissioner spoke in regard of the February 8 deadline for the collection of PVCs, nothing about the schedule of the general elections.

“You said she spoke to you ‘on the sidelines’ of the event. Well, I have checked with the commissioner and she denied that the issue discussed was the schedule of the 2015 elections. You had, during the question-and-answer session at the event, asked about the notably low level of collection in some states and the implication for voter turnout, which the commission had missed out in her responses.

“Later ‘on the sidelines’, she explained to you that the number of PVCs already collected rates highly in comparison to the level of voter turn historically in Nigerian elections. Still, she added, INEC has not completely foreclosed the possibility of granting a few days of extension in isolated cases of low percentage of collection after February 8.

“The inference you’ve made for the schedule of elections is entirely yours, and misrepresents the conversation that took place at the event this morning. You will do well to correct the report urgently, please.”