ABUJA: Nigerians hoping to cast their ballots in elections set for Saturday were instead turned away from polling stations after the electoral commission’s snap decision to delay the vote by a week.

President Muhammadu Buhari said he was “deeply disappointed” by last-gasp postponement and called for calm, as rumours swirled on both sides of a plot to rig the vote.

Leading opposition candidate Atiku Abubakar said he was “absolutely not” comfortable with the delay, while urging his supporters to be patient.

“If you want to postpone the election, then you can do so one week beforehand, but you can’t just postpone a few hours before,” he told reporters.

Both Buhari, 76, and Abubakar, 72, headed to Abuja from their home towns in northern Nigeria for a meeting with electoral officials to discuss the postponement.

Many voters were caught unaware by the early morning announcement and arrived at polling places to find the doors barred and staff absent.

“Why didn’t they announce the delay earlier? Why make the announcement in the middle of the night?” asked Chidi Nwakuna, a businessman who showed up early to vote in the southern city of Port Harcourt.

Voting had been due to start nationwide at nearly 120,000 polling stations at 0700 GMT on Saturday, with a record 73 candidates on the ballot.Rumours began circulating late on Friday about a possible postponement after widespread reports of problems with the delivery of election materials, including ballot papers.

Members of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) held emergency talks and after examining the logistics plans concluded the timetable was “no longer feasible”, its chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, said.

Presidential and parliamentary elections are now set for February 23, and governorship and state assembly elections have been pushed back to March 9, Yakubu said.

“This was a difficult decision for the commission to take but necessary for the successful delivery of elections and the consolidation of our democracy,” he added.

The two main political parties swiftly accused each other of orchestrating the delay as a way of manipulating the vote, a sentiment echoed by voters, some of whom had travelled long distances to vote in their hometowns.

“I see this postponement of the election as a... ploy to rig,” said Oyi Adamezie in Warri, in the southern state of Delta.

Nigeria has postponed voting before: in 2015, INEC announced a six-week delay just one week before the election, citing security concerns linked to Boko Haram.

The six-week delay was seen as a way for then president Goodluck Jonathan to claw back votes after a strong challenge from Buhari, an opposition candidate.

The same argument may be made again, with little to separate Buhari and Abubakar.

Yet even before the delay’s announcement, challenges were apparent in the vote’s organisation.

Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2019