The Director of Strategic Communication, Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Council, Dele Momodu has tackled the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, for deciding to postpone the March 11 gubernatorial election after he refused to delay the announcement of the results for the February 25 presidential election.
Recall that while collating the results from the presidential election, some political parties including PDP and LP had demanded that announcements of the results be delayed so that all the results uploaded on the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System BVAS be properly collated, sent to the central server of INEC which is the iRev and projected on a screen at the National Collation Center in Abuja where the INEC chairman was receiving the results from each state Resident Electoral Commissioner.
INEC chairman dismissed their calls and went on to announce the results.
On Wednesday night, March 8, INEC announced the postponement of the gubernatorial elections earlier scheduled for March 11. The electoral body hinged its decision on the ruling by the court of appeal in Lagos granting it permission to reconfigure the BVAS machines used for the Presidential and National Assembly elections.
The body stated that the ruling came a bit late as it will need time to reconfigure the machines. It, therefore, postponed the election so it can have enough time to reconfigure the machines as well as back up all the data previously stored on the over 176,000 BVAS machines used during the Presidential and National Assembly elections.
In a post shared on his Instagram page this morning, Momodu stated that the INEC chairman could postpone the elections but could not delay the announcements of results from the presidential elections when it was being contested.
His post reads;
‘’It is just curious how come the same INEC that could postpone the Gubernatorial elections could not wait a few days in order to perfect the Presidential race and make a good name permanently for itself? Where was PROFESSOR MAHMOOD YAKUBU rushing to for God’s sake?”