Bayero University Kano Lecturer, Mr Joseph Dameh, said he was not surprised with the sudden decision by INEC to postpone the election as there was no proper arrangement for the exercise.
He made the remark in reaction to the postponement of the Presidential and National Assembly elections in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kano on Saturday.
Dameh, who INEC trained as a Supervisory Presiding Officer (SPO), said he expected the postponement to happen in view of the poor preparations made by the commission from the beginning.
“The postponement is something I knew was going to happen, because I went for training and from the way things were going it was obvious that INEC was not organised.
“We are the ones that supposed to go and train the Corps members and students (Presiding Officers), but we were not trained properly so what kind of training are they expecting us to give the POs.
“At the end of the day I refused to go for the training as a facilitator, how can a SPO name appear in three local government, it means if the election hold there would be shortage of staff,’’ he stressed.
Dameh noted that the postponement of the election by one week would not be enough for the commission to be ready because of the numerous challenges it was facing.
He added that the card readers that were used in 2015 general elections were not the same card readers that would be used for the forthcoming elections.
He added that the card readers have been upgraded with more security features.
“We were trained in a class of over 200 people, only 20 card readers were brought and they did only one session some people did not even touch it,’’ he said.
He, therefore, urged the commission to postpone the general elections by two months to enable it prepare properly.
NAN reports that INEC had on Friday announced the postponement of the elections by one week due to what it described as logistical challenges.
Meanwhile, a housewife, Hajiya Rabi Isa, has described the postponement of the general elections as very unfortunate in view of the time the commission wasted in preparation for the election.
“More so people were eager to vote and go on with their normal activities.
“The foreign observers will also be disappointed for wasting their time doing nothing and the entire world will think Nigerians are not serious.
“INEC should have informed Nigerians that they were not ready before fixing the date for the election,’’ she said.
Isa urged the commission to be more serious, adding it should have planned ahead for any emergency that may arise.
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