Polls Shift: Buhari should convene emergency Council of State meeting, says Dickson

Gov. Seriake Dickson has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to convene an emergency National Council of State meeting to discuss issues concerning Saturday’s postponement of the general elections.

Dickson made the call in a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media, Mr. Fidelis Soriwei, in Yenagoa on Tuesday.

He said that the meeting should be expanded to include the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), security agencies and party candidates.

He said that the leadership of INEC should be invited to brief the council on why it unilaterally postponed the elections a few hours to voting.

Dickson said: “It is at the end of the meeting that INEC should pick a new date. I disagree with the commission on the unilateral choice of a date.

“I don’t believe that all the challenges that INEC had could be solved within six days and that the country should expect hitch-free elections on Saturday.

“This is important because our nation cannot afford another postponement on the election day. “I believe that before INEC should announce another date, we should have the expanded meeting of the National Council of State.”

Dickson said that it was important for INEC to explain to Nigerians why some of the materials for the elections were not customized contrary to the standard practice in previous polls.

“In Bayelsa, INEC did not have the ballot papers for the presidential election, ink and some of the materials were not even customized.

“This contradicts the standard for which INEC is reputed over the years,” the governor said.

He decried the calls by some Nigerians for the removal of the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, “to avoid plunging the country into an avoidable crisis.”

He said the postponement of the polls a few hours to voting portrayed Nigeria as an unserious nation.

The governor also reacted to the presidential directive to security agencies to deal ruthlessly with ballot box snatchers.

He expressed the hope that the enforcement of the directive should not be selective.

“I hope that the president’s directive to deal ruthlessly with trouble makers during the elections would include the leaders of his party in Bayelsa,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Leberi Sampson, the Administrative Secretary for INEC in Baylesa told our reporter that all the distributed sensitive materials for the botched polls had been returned to the commission’s headquarters in Yenagoa.