By Review sessions, strategy meetings underway as pressure mounts
By Tasie Theodore
The postponement of Nigeria’s General Elections last Saturday has presently returned contesting parties back to the drawing board, The Difference has confirmed.
Scheduled to have opened at 7am on Saturday, February 16, a 2.30am announcement by the Independent Electoral Commission communicated news of the postponement that same morning to Nigerians and the world.
Citing logistics failings, the Commission informed stakeholders and the public that the presidential and national assembly polls had been rescheduled for Saturday, February 23rd with the Governorship and House of Assembly polls also moved from the earlier March 2nd date to a new date of March 9th.
And with this development has come the convening of review sessions and strategy meetings, particularly among the leading political parties to ensure that the incidence of postponement does not have untoward political consequences for them.
While bigwigs of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP are reportedly consulting over the new potential threats from the postponement with a view to curtailing them, leading lights within the ruling All Progressives Congress have been summoned for an Emergency Session at the National Headquarters of the party in Abuja on Monday.
It remains however unclear what would play out in the field of practical political campaigning in the new week following the postponement.
This is because, while the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has stated that no new window for formal campaigning would be permitted, the Coalition of United Political Parties, CUPP is maintaining that its member parties would continue campaigning until the constitutionally guaranteed deadline of 24 hours before the opening of the polls.
Bukola Saraki, Nigeria’s Senate President
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