President Muhammadu Buhari heavily criticized the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led government for postponing the 2015 general elections.
On February 8, 2015, six days away from the election day, INEC postponed the February 14 presidential election by six weeks over insecurity.
The elections commission chief, Attahiru Jega, said the delay until 28 March was necessary because of heightened insecurity that could affect the safety of election personnel, voters and materials, especially in the troubled North-east region.
Few days to the election when it started becoming clear that it would be postponed, Mr. Buhari criticized the commission for considering postponement.
“It took INEC one month to work out…I see no reason why we should postpone it,” Mr Buhari said when asked by the planned postponement of 2015.
“There are 14 local governments where there is (security) problem; 10 in Borno, two in Your, two in Adamawa. And there and 774 local governments in Nigeria. Should we postpone the election because of 14 local governments?”
“Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria were fighting wars and they conducted elections, what is Boko Haram?” he said, dismissing the reporter
History has repeated itself on Saturday morning, but this time under Buhari as the president. INEC postponed the presidential and national assembly elections giving logistics challenges as reasons.
The announcement was made at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday, a few hours to the commencement of the polls.
In reaction this time as the President, Buhari said he was “deeply disappointed” by the latest postponement and urged Nigerians to be calm and peaceful.