By Umar Muhammad Puma
The Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) has rejected calls by the National Security Adviser (NSA), Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd) for the postponement of the general elections slated for February 14 and February 21, 2015 respectively.
In a statement issued and signed by its chairman, Comrade Zikirullahi M. Ibrahim, the group viewed the call as a ploy to pull the rug under the feet of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and create uncertainty around an electoral process that Nigerians and the international community have invested so heavily in.
“For us at the TMG, there is something fishy and untoward about a call like this being made by the NSA less than three weeks to the elections. Moreover, if at all there is any compelling reason for the date of the polls to be shifted, the appropriate body to make that call would be the INEC, which is constitutionally empowered to make decisions relating to elections in Nigeria.
“We also wonder why such a call is coming so close to the elections, when INEC itself has not come out to say it is unable to go ahead with the polls. The issue of collection of PVCs has been the way it has been so far because a good number of Nigerians who should have gone out to pick theirs’ have not done so. Moreover, INEC has been intensifying efforts, including the de-centralization of the collection process to ensure many more Nigerians pick up their PVCs. In any case, if INEC believes it is no longer in a position to hold the elections on the said dates, it should be the one to make such a position known” TMG stated.
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