Nigeria Waits, A Little While Longer

After years of preparation Nigeria has had to postpone the 2015 elections for six weeks. And yet again the country's government has demonstrated that it couldn't organise a drinking session in a brewery. According to INEC concerns over security in the north east of the country have persuaded it that it would not be safe to go ahead with elections on February 14th. However sources close to the government have suggested that INEC just isn't fully prepared to organise the elections effectively. Whatever the reasons are this decision should have been made sooner to avoid the subsequent disruption that is likely to follow. 

It is clear that the postponement has been ordered from high up in the government. INEC doesn't have the remit or resources to determine security risks. That would be the responsibility of the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Inspector General of Police and the head of national security. I would have expected security during the elections to be top of the National Security Committee agenda for the past twelve months. It should thus have been apparent much sooner that security in the North East needed to be reinforced in order for elections to go ahead. It speaks to the endemic institutional inefficiency in the country that this was not done. 

It is impossible to ignore claims that INEC is still not fully prepared to hold the elections. Even the INEC chairman acknowledged that almost 40% of eligible voters still haven't received voters cards. It's further confirmation of the prevalence of inefficiency in the country that a simple task like issuing voters cards is beyond the means of a long standing national body. But it is very likely that fraud and financial misappropriation probably played a part in the lack of preparedness. It must have been apparent for some time that INEC did not have the distribution of voters cards in hand. One can only wonder why the Minister of Internal Affairs did not take appropriate action sooner. 

It is not entirely clear how much disruption this postponement will cause. Some universities have already shut down anticipating the conclusion of elections this weekend. It is unclear whether they will now remain closed till March. While it us unlikely that the security risks will be any less come March, one hopes that the elections will be able to go ahead with minimum disorder and violence.