Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission Chairman Attahiru Jega said further delays to already postponed elections would be unconstitutional.
The election agency of Africa’s largest economy and biggest oil producer delayed national and state elections due this month by six weeks to March 28 and April 11. INEC postponed the vote after the country’s security agencies said they couldn’t guarantee safety while engaged in an offensive against Boko Haram Islamist militants in the northeast.
“I don’t see how anybody can contemplate any extension beyond six weeks because there are no constitutional grounds on which you can do that,” Jega told a Senate hearing in the Abuja today.
Incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the ruling People’s Democratic Party is facing challengers including Muhammadu Buhari, a former military dictator and candidate of the All Progressives Congress, formed through the merger of the biggest opposition parties. Buhari’s party is expected to give Jonathan’s PDP the stiffest electoral contest of its 16 years in power, with polls showing a close race.
“We believe that the period of extension has offered us the opportunity to further perfect the electoral process for the delivery of free, fair and credible elections,” Jega said. The commission has given more time for voters to collect their new biometric cards and tested card readers aimed at improving the credibility of elections that were in the past marred by fraud, Jega said.
