On social media, a woman was captured on video crying and rolling on the floor. She was a kunnu (local juice) seller who had apparently produced more products for the purpose of selling at her polling booth. She was devastated on hearing of the postponement of the elections. Memuna, as she was identified, lost everything.
For the three straight national elections it conducted in 2011, 2015 and 2019, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had cause to postpone all the national elections in those years.
The postponement of 2011 and 2015 elections seemed to have moderate economic impacts on the nation, however the postponement of the 2019 elections had huge economic and psychological impacts on Nigerians and Nigeria.
For the 2019 general elections, just five hours to the commencement of polls, INEC decided to postpone the elections, a decision that cost the nation an estimated N239.93bn, according to BusinessDay findings published on Monday, February 18.
The loss was the cumulation of the impact of the postponement of the elections on the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), cost to INEC and total cost of mobilising polling agents for the elections.
Really, all the losses cannot be quantified and captured in the GDP. People who lost their lives in the course of traveling to their base to vote; people who had to postpone their social engagements arising from the postponement of the election; journalists, politicians, observers, INEC staff and other stakeholders who stayed awake for the purpose of the elections would have to undergo the stress again.
According to the electoral umpire, it became necessary to take the painful yet bold decision if Nigeria is to have free, fair and credible elections, identifying ‘logistics’ problems as the reason for the rescheduling of the elections.
“Following a careful review of the implementation of its logistics and operational plan and the determination to conduct free, fair and credible elections, the Commission came to the conclusion that proceeding with the elections as scheduled is no longer feasible”, Mahmood Yakubu, the INEC chief said.
Beyond the postponement, Nigerians were more disturbed by the timing, mere hours before the election was scheduled to take-off.
INEC apparently indicted itself when it alluded that it was aware of the logistics problems days before the elections.
“Unfortunately, in the last one week, flights within the country have been adversely affected by bad weather. For instance, three days ago, we were unable to deliver materials to some locations due to bad weather,” said Yakubu.
The commission equally blamed the postponement of the elections on some people working against the interest of the nation.
“We also faced what may well be attempts to sabotage our preparations. In a space of two weeks, we had to deal with serious fire incidents in three of our offices in the Isiala Ngwa South Local Government Area of Abia State; Qu’an Pan LGA of Plateau State and our Anambra State office at Awka,” Yakubu said.
Many Nigerians have endured a lot of losses due to the sudden postponement of the presidential elections on February 16. But the real loss for Nigeria and Nigerians is if their votes do not count on the new election dates, February 23 and March 9.
INEC has to redeem her image.
This year’s election has to reflect the true choice of the Nigerian electorate. That is when Nigerians will accept whatever pains and losses they experienced as sacrifice they had to make for their darling country. That is when Memuna, the kunnu seller, will console herself and see her losses as a sacrifice for the development of democracy in her country.
Anything otherwise will be a tragedy and major loss for Memuna, all other Memunas and the country.
MAURICE OGU
