Boko Haram not main cause of election postponement —Fani-Kayode

THE ongoing Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East is not the main reason the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) postponed the conduct of the general election, contrary to the view being canvassed in the international media.
This is according to the director of publicity of the Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organisation (PDPPCO), Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, who made the assertion during an interview with British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) African service.
He said the decision to postpone the elections never emanated from the government of President Goodluck Jonathan as being speculated, but from INEC, owing to the problem of logistics it encountered.
Fani-Kayode said INEC agreed to shift the dates for the scheduled elections mainly because many eligible voters in Nigeria were yet to get their permanent voter cards (PVCs).
He stressed that the percentage of those yet to get the cards was still high as of the time the dates of the elections were shifted.
He said INEC had announced that about 34 per cent of eligible voters in Nigeria were yet to get the voter cards, stressing that the scheduled general election could not have been allowed to go on with a high percentage of Nigerians being disenfranchised.
He told the BBC that Boko Haram became part of the problem for postponing the election because the service chiefs in Nigeria suggested to INEC that they could not guarantee security during a nationwide election, while the attention of the military would be concentrated on the task of flushing the insurgents out of the north-eastern part of the country.
He debunked speculations that Boko Haram had now assumed an influence in Nigerian politics to the extent of causing the change of election dates in the country.
The campaign spokesman said although the insurgents, before now, were operating freely in some parts of Nigeria, including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, with a spate of bombings, the military had responded and fought valiantly to push them to the north-east zone of the country.
Fani-Kayode said the postponement had never affected the preparations of the PDP, noting that the party was ever ready to go full blast into the elections if they had been allowed to hold on the scheduled dates.