INEC Reveals Only Thing That Can Stop Saturday’s Polls

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Wednesday, said only an ‘act of God’ can stop the Commission from conducting Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections.

INEC said it doesn’t foresee anything that will prompt it to reschedule the elections like it did when it postponed the February 16 elections to February 23.

This was according to INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who said this during a meeting with the diplomatic community and international election monitoring groups in Abuja.

Yakubu was represented at the meeting by a national commissioner of INEC, Dr. Mustapha Lecky.

“We have no reason to believe that anything [will go wrong] except an act of God, and we believe that as a prayerful nation, the act of God has been assuaged and that things will go right, we have no reason to feel that anything will go wrong. We have received all the materials, they have been checked, audited people have been informed, party agents have gone there to check,” said Yakubu.

Speaking also at the gathering, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, pleaded with foreign nations not to interfere in the internal challenges facing Nigeria.

Onyeama added that the Federal Government would resist any attempt by foreign nations to dictate to it on how to run its affairs.

“We welcome very much your engagement, we appreciate your support, we acknowledge how important your engagement for us in 2015 helped us to deliver probably one of the most free and credible elections we have had in this country for a very long time,” said the minister.

“But we have cause to be concerned with the way the engagement have been communicated, because at the end of the day, we are a sovereign country, the line should not be crossed from exalting us, and wanting this to succeed and really be democratic process to dictating to us and getting to the nitty-gritty of how we run the country,” he added.