More reactions have continued to trail the one-week postponement of the General Elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
For Rodney Muhumuza, a foreign correspondent with Associated Press (AP), Promise Alexandria, a Youth Corps Member serving in Akwa Ibom State and Seun Adams, February 16, 2019 will be a day they will never forget in a hurry.
Muhumuza’s excrutuating experience represents what other foreign journalists and observers who arrived the country are currently facing, following the postponement of the polls.
They are caught beween going back to their country without fulfilling their mission or extending their stay at extra cost in terms of feeding, accommodation, local travels and other expenses not originally captured in their budget.
Muhumuza is a Ugandan journalist who flew into Nigeria for the first time to cover the country’s General Elections. “This is my first visit to Nigeria and second to West Africa. I was in Ghana to cover their last General Elections,” he tells BDSUNDAY.
Although he stayed in the nation’s capital since Tuesday, February 12, 2019 and boarded a flight to Yola, Adamawa State – the home of PDP Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar – to cover the elections, he would later learn of the shift in the polls a day after lodging at a hotel in Yola, preparatory to the exercise.
Speaking with BDSUNDAY on his next line of action, he says: “Not sure (if I will remain in Yola). I will try to report some features maybe until Tuesday and then head back to Abuja mid-week. Alternately I might be asked to stay here until Saturday”.
Also narrating her ordeal to BDSUNDAY, a journalist with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), who had arrived Abuja since Wednesday from London for the elections said: “I am shocked at what has happened.”
She added: “I leave on Monday but the rest of the news teams will stay”.
As for Alexandria, she was one of the corps members serving in Akwa Ibom State and called up as an adhoc staff for the just cancelled elections.
According to her, they only got to know of the postponement through the Internet, lamenting that they slept in the open field, even as their allowances are yet to be paid as of the time of filing this report.
“Nobody addressed us. They gave us empty promises that we would be credited yesterday (Friday) before 4pm. We didn’t see anything. They said N4,500 (bank) for the training. And N9,000 for sleeping out (in cash). But we received nothing”.
Other corps members who were to act as INEC ad-hoc staff also decried government’s insensivity, INEC’s inadequacies, as they decry lack of concern displayed by the officials.
Findings by BDSUNDAY showed that the Corp members who were engaged as INEC ad-hoc staff for the postponed general election were exposed to environmental risks and abandoned by the assigned INEC officials without any form of security.
Seun Adams, a Corp member (INEC ad-hoc staff) assigned to Garki 02, Garki Model Primary School in Abuja Municipal Area Council, explaining her ordeal, said that they were stranded at the venue of the election as the INEC officials as well as the policemen left the venue at 2am of the supposed day of election.
She said “I was surprised when they said we should be here by 3pm a day before the election. This venue have no light, no water, nor security. Later at around 10 pm the Inec staff came with policemen and by 11 pm, they brought few mats that could not go round everyone, we had to struggle to get mats. We were instructed to sleep outside this school compound, at about 2am we started hearing vehicles moving out so we woke up, the policemen told us that they want to get fuel for their vehicles and that how they left and never came back”.
“Few minutes later we started getting information that the election has been postponed, we rushed to where the inec officials were, no one was there anymore not even a security man, so we had to sleep outside the classrooms as the doors were locked, this is not meant to be, we are human beings also”.
Meanwhile, our correspondent who kept vigil at the commission’s office in Jalingo said corps members and observers were seen discoursing in groups about the postponement of the elections.
A corp member who spoke to BusinessDay on ground of anonymity said “we were asked to go home.That we shall be communicated on the the next line of action. Trecking home this midnight is the major challenge we will face, honestly we are stranded”she said.
The Taraba state Head of Information department of the commission Fabian Yame,said they were still sorting out materials waiting for further directives from the headquarters.
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Cynthia Egboboh, Abuja & Nathaniel Gbaoron, Jalingo
