Nigeria's electoral body rejects call for poll postponement

Nigeria's electoral body on Friday rejected call for the postponement of next month's general elections in which 68.8 million eligible citizens are expected to vote.

The calls for the postponement of the election was re-echoed on Thursday by the country's National Security Adviser (NSA), Sambo Dasuki, who claimed he had already held talks with the authorities of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

He said he was in favor of the poll postponement to enable the electoral body effectively to distribute the permanent voter's card to the citizens before the elections are conducted.

However, Nigeria's electoral chief, Attahiru Jega, while speaking at a sensitization workshop, said the election will go on as earlier scheduled. "We have assured that the issue of concern will be addressed before elections and the cards will be made for all registered voters. As evidenced in our preparations, we are ready to hold elections in February," the official said.

According to Jega, the distribution of voter's cards to eligible voters will be completed by the end of January. So far, more than 40 million voter's cards had been made available to the voting population, he noted.

The official cited late registration for the voter's cards as cause of the delay in producing and distributing them on time.

The Nigerian electoral commission has fixed Feb. 14 and Feb. 28 for the presidential and federal lawmakers' election, as well as the governorship and state legislators' election respectively. Endi