As Nigerians are disquiet over the postponement of the presidential and national assembly elections, the vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Mr. Peter Obi, shocked many as he exhibited placidness and pleaded with Nigerians to be unruffled.
Obi who attended morning mass, advised PDP supporters to be calm, noting that Gods will is supreme at all times.
Recall that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, through its chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, announced the postponement of both the presidential, national, governorship and state house of assembly elections at about 2:45 am on Saturday.
The presidential and national assembly elections billed to hold today was shifted to 23rd February, while governorship and state house was postponed to 9th March.
Reeling reasons for its decision, the commission opined, that the rescheduled elections would give the commission the opportunity to address identified challenges in order to maintain the quality of the elections.
The statement reads; “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.
“Consequently, the Commission has decided to reschedule the Presidential and National Assembly Elections to Saturday, 23rd February 2019.
“Furthermore, the Governorship, State House of Assembly and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Area Council Elections is rescheduled to Saturday 9th March 2019. This will afford the Commission the opportunity to address identified challenges in order to maintain the quality of our elections.”
Reacting to the above, Valentine Obienyem, who visited Obi in his country home, Agulu, cited the former governor as saying “Val nothing has changed about my belief that God’s will is supreme at all times.”
On his own, Val who was shocked on hearing about the postponement asked the following questions:
How can INEC convince anybody that it suddenly discovered its unpreparedness on the day of the election? What of foreign observers already in the country? What of those that traveled home from their destinations? What of those contesting that had already paid their agents? There are many questions begging for answers.