Bimbola Oyesola
The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has charged Nigerians to put Saturday’s last-minute postponement of the presidential and National Assembly elections behind them and go out en mass to vote next weekend.
The NLC president, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, yesterday lamented that no explanation would be good enough, given the Independent National Electoral Commission’s repeated assurances and the zeal of Nigerians regarding the polls.
He said labour shared in the pains of those who, in an uncommon show of patriotism, travelled long distances to perform their civic duty.
“We similarly understand the outrage of those who had incurred huge and unquantifiable logistic costs,” he said.
He, however, reasoned that, given the fact that had the election taken place, a huge number of Nigerians would have been disenfranchised on account of widespread logistic hiccups, the postponement was the lesser evil of the two.
He said, “In light of this, we enjoin all Nigerians to quickly put behind them this ugly incident and brace up for the rescheduled election next weekend.
“In spite of huge costs to them, we call on all Nigerians to self-mobilise on the same scale that they did the previous weekend. Let them not be disillusioned or react to this postponement in a manner that will create voter-apathy. This will certainly be counter-productive and will in the long run work against the interests of the electorate.”
The NLC president called on institutions to be flexible with their staff to enable them travel in good time to perform this important civic duty even if it means government declaring one or two days of public holiday to achieve this.
“As for INEC, we do hope they have learnt their lesson. On no account ever again should they allow this to happen. All efforts and expertise must be deployed by INEC to guarantee free, fair and credible elections,” Wabba said.
In the same vein, Comrade Issa Aremu, the general secretary of the National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring Workers, has said that INEC must improve on its corporate governance by sticking to its rescheduled timetable in order to sustain the confidence it has engendered so far in the preparations for the 2019 elections.
Aremu, who is also a governorship candidate of Labour Party, said, “It is certainly unacceptable that some voting materials are not ready after four years of preparations.
“It is also embarrassing that the postponement came so late in the day with all the attendant costs for poor voters who had to travel to and fro to vote. There was enough notification for the 2015 postponement based on security reasons. INEC is right that the postponement is “one difficult decision,” but it is even more challenging for the electorate and candidates alike who woke up for no-voting-show.”