While the Nigerian public was stupefied and angry at the news of the postponement of the Presidential and National Assembly Elections, initially scheduled for Saturday, February 16, by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), details of the web of lapses and conspiracies that caused what many regarded as ‘national calamity’ have emerged.
INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, announced the postponement of the election by one week just about five hours to the opening of the polls. He set a new date for the Presidential and National Assembly polls to February 23, and also announced that the governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections originally scheduled for March 2 will now hold on March 9.
The Electoral Commission blamed the postponement on logistics and operational challenges but BusinessDay can authoritatively report how the INEC, contracted the distribution of sensitive electoral materials to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The CBN, BusinessDay gathered had also contracted the responsibility for the distribution of materials to Allied Air, a private airline, which has been a client of the CBN for the conveyance of sensitive and none-sensitive electoral materials since 2004.
According to the INEC rules, all sensitive electoral materials are supposed to be deployed to the CBN branches across the federation one week to elections for onward distribution to the about 120,000 polling units scattered all over the nation in order to have adequate materials for the commencement of the elections at least by 8am on Election day. Nigeria has 84 million registered voters and hundreds of contestants including about 71 Presidential candidates. These large figures required prompt printing and distribution of the requisite materials in a vast country like Nigeria with some very difficult terrains and landscapes.
INEC Chairman, Yakubu, was on air a week to the polls and sounded confident about the readiness of the commission to hold the polls. His position was however, contradicted by the apparent failure of the Allied Air to distribute electoral materials to meet the stipulated time frame as many parts of the country could not get the required materials even on the Election Day.
Facing dilemma of a botched exercise or at least a postponement, INEC and the CBN, BusinessDay gathered, had to call in the Nigerian Air Force to deploy their facilities to assist in the distribution, but it was too little too late. Questions are still being asked as to whether it was the delay by the CBN to contract Allied Air for the job, or the INEC that did not offer the contract to the CBN on time. This is the “tangle of the trio” that led to the postponement, which experts said have cost the country about N700 billion, disappointed the International Community and caused widespread anger and disillusionment across the country.
BusinessDay put a call across to Captain Val Tongo, managing director/CEO of the Allied Airline to respond to some of the issues but he declined comments and promised to speak later on the matter. At the time of writing this report, he was yet to respond.
A source who wishes to remain anonymous said: “The truth is that the entire procurement and logistics security and operational support and value chain of INEC was hijacked by APC members, their families and friends.
“The transport of sensitive cargoes was abandoned on Val Tongo of Allied Air to the utter exclusion of the NAF. The CBN became an outsourced service provider without a project manager at INEC.
“The APC simply hijacked the process once the outsourcing took place and used simple blackmail strategy to deliver or fail to deliver materials as they deemed fit. You need to call for a full audit of the procurement process and logistics security value chain.”
The source added that Nigeria should track the suppliers of services and the country will see the quantum of prebendal procurement and outsourced services delivery and why the whole game is skewed and unraveling.
“They chose a single point of failure…a simple choke point through which they are able to manipulate the system,” the source said.
Meanwhile, Air Commodore Ibikunle Daramola, Director of Public Relations and Information, Nigerian Air Force said they were not the core contractors but invited to provide additional support to INEC logistics which they did according to instructions and as much as they could.
He however, said it was not in their place to comment or even explain what happened but that of INEC, insisting that it was some private airlines that handled the job, but that their role was to provide additional support which they did.
The Air Force had issued a statement about three days to the now rescheduled election that it had started airlift of electoral materials for INEC across the country, a time frame aviation experts told BusinessDay was too short for the huge materials to be moved around the country before Saturday election.
The airlift exercise included day and night missions, during which both sensitive and non-sensitive electoral materials were conveyed in batches, with NAF C-130 Hercules aircraft from the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja to various airports across the country.
BusinessDay also put calls across to the Director of Corporate Communications of the CBN, Isaac Okorafor, to respond to the issues but as at the time of writing this report, he did not pick his calls neither did he respond to text messages sent to him.
Innocent Odoh, Abuja
