Some residents of Akwa Ibom have condemned the postponement of the general elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), saying the decision could breed voter apathy.
The News Agency of Nigeria(NAN) reports that INEC on Saturday shifted the presidential and national assembly elections from Feb. 16 to Feb. 23, and postponed the governorship and state assembly elections from March 2 to March 9.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said the shift in date of the elections by one week was due to logistics and to enable the commission to conduct the desired free, fair and credible elections for Nigerians.
Speaking to NAN on Saturday, Mr Anietie Umo, a political scientist, said that the postponement would cause voter apathy as people who had earlier traveled to their home towns to vote would not want to travel again.
“The thing is very discouraging. The postponement will discourage the electorate in the country.
“The postponement is going to create apathy because of the loses the people are going to incur. A lot of people may not be able to turn out to vote on the rescheduled dates,” umo said.
Also speaking to NAN on the postponement, a legal practitioner in Uyo, Mr Ekong Ekong, decried the sudden shift in date.
Ekong wondered why INEC could not postpone the elections two weeks earlier, but allowed people to use their hard-earned resources to travel and only for the commission to shift the elections few hours to the commencement.
In her reaction, a Chef in one of the prominent eateries in Uyo, Ms Glory Ebong, said that after the close of work on Friday, the restaurant’s workers were asked not to come to work on Saturday due to the elections.
Ebong said that some of the workers had, therefore, seized the opportunity to travel home possibly because of fear of election violence.
“The postponement is confusing and had incurred extra expenses to those who had traveled to vote in their home towns.
“Even in our place of work, I had to start calling workers to come to work this morning because we did not intend to open today due to the elections.
“Even as I am talking to you, some of them have yet to come to work, I could not reach them on their cell phones.
She said that apart from workers in their eatery, a lot of people had traveled to their home towns with intention to vote and come back to work on Monday.
She described the postponement as an economic waste to the people, and urged INEC to be firm in its decision making. (NAN)