Imagine waking up on elections Day, and set out for a polling station to vote, on your way you decide to buy a newspaper and shock on you, the headlines read “Elections Postponed by a week.” I hope this never happens in Kenya because as Moses Wetangula puts it, it could be messy, ugly, and there could be casualties.
This is what happened in Nigeria on Saturday 16, 2019. However, Nigeria remains calm over the delayed elections while the relationship between two opponent leaders grows cold.
A last-minute delay of Nigeria’s general elections by a week has smashed trust in Africa’s biggest democracy and harbors peril for the campaigns of both President Muhammadu Buhari and his main opponent, Atiku Abubakar.
The postponement won’t benefit Abubakar campaign either because the delay could discourage voters in areas where he needs a high turnout to win. Millions of Nigerians had traveled to their hometowns to cast their ballots and many may not be able to do the same again this week.
“This late postponement is extremely disruptive — both the ruling All Progressives Party and the opposition People’s Democratic Party had spent money to mobilize party agents and supporters,” Amaka Anku, Africa analyst at Eurasia Group, said in an e-mailed note.
The decision also heightened tensions in what has been a tight race between Buhari, a 76-year-old former military ruler, and businessman and ex-vice president Abubakar, 72. Analysts were split down the middle over who would win. Both Buhari’s APC and Abubakar’s PDP condemned the delay.
Buhari had traveled to his hometown of Daura, in Katsina state, where he intended to vote, only to return to Abuja, the capital, on Saturday.