by Nkoyo Adibua

You have to commend the excellent sense of timing on display here, and simultaneously wonder about the origin of this new found sense of urgency. We hope it will be permanent.

By their nature, elections in a democracy are huge logistical undertakings that often tie down the resources and capture the imagination of the nation. In a country as large and diverse as Nigeria, and an election cycle that is the most keenly contested yet, this is even truer.

The presidential elections billed for 14th February has been eagerly anticipated by Nigerians, and the supporters of Muhammadu Buhari, the APC candidate, even dubbed it ‘FeBuhari’. It had a nice ring to it, but that will now quickly have to be dropped.

The reason is because, like a sexual congress that is aborted due to an organ that fails to ‘turn up’ (pun intended) at the precise moment it is needed, Nigeria has now experienced electoral dysfunction, which, for the purposes of this article, is the failure to carry out the election as scheduled.

The major reason given for the postponement, is to secure the North East part of the country, now facing its fifth year of an insurgency, a task that will is purported to take about six weeks. The first big problem with that reason, is that the federal government has known for months about the date of the elections, but has not been able to root out the insurgents before now. The second big problem is this: Can a Nigerian military, unable to secure its territory for over four years, now do so inside six weeks? If the security situation is not improved by then, what next? Another postponement?

Nigerians must remember that this area was under a continuous state of emergency for over a year, and that since 2010, over N4.4 trillion has been budgeted for security. And, there have been three fake ceasefire announcements in that time as well. After all this, what are the odds that another six weeks—albeit with neighbouring countries much more involved militarily— bring the desired improvement?

It is weird enough that this whole thing started with a statement on January 22nd by the National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, in a speech all the way in London, rather than from the INEC chairman, who is the primary person concerned with such statements. Dasuki cited PVC distribution as his reason, even though the total collection rate is close to 70%. Even weirder is that the fact that all security agencies ruled out the possibility of providing security for the elections, because of an offensive being planned against Boko Haram, which is supposed to start—wait for it—on 14th February. You have to commend the excellent sense of timing on display here, and simultaneously wonder about the origin of this new found sense of urgency. We hope it will be permanent.

While Nigerians ponder the implications of this postponement, Jonathan’s proxies have already begun attacking the personality of Attahiru Jega, the INEC chairman. Doyin Okupe called him a liar, while Musiliu Obanikoro went on radio, alleging that Jega is in cahoots with the opposition. Statements credited to Edwin Clark, last week, called for his arrest.

From whatever angle this is examined, a dangerous strategy is in play here. By simultaneously refusing to provide the security needed for the elections, and attacking the credibility of the chairman, a coordinated attempt is underway to ensure the elections do not hold as planned. What Goodluck Jonathan has done is to invite the security agencies into the political process and put them at the center stage. They are in charge now. How this ends is anyone’s guess.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

Emmanuel Chidiogo