It is certainly no longer news that the Edo governorship election earlier slated for Saturday, September 10 2016, could suffer a rescheduling.
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![Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki [Facebook]](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf8,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D'http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg'%20width%3D'100'%20height%3D'100'%20data-ring-placeholder%3D'1'%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E "Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki [Facebook]")
Here are three reasons why Pulse thinks Edo voters will have to leave their biometric cards on ice at least for another week or two.
1). "Security reports" often mean a postponement
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is often at the mercy of law enforcement.
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When the State Security Service and the Police ask you to delay a vote, you do. Simple.
And there’s recent history to hark back to in this regard:
The 2015 presidential vote was slated for February until the National Security Adviser’s office led by a certain Sambo Dasuki, thought the landscape was too dangerous for voters and voting officials alike.
The vote was quickly rescheduled.
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Security reports have also led to postponement of elections in Rivers and elsewhere in the country in recent times.
Go ahead with the election and you are held liable for any violence that erupts on polling day.
INEC boss Prof Mahmood Yakubu knows this. He’ll yield to the advice of the security agencies and ask field officials to stack the polling booths back in the delivery vans.
2.) Police have gone on holiday
Reports just filtering into our newsroom indicate that the Police have halted the exercise of dispatching personnel to assist INEC officials in distributing sensitive election materials.
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If that doesn’t tell you that the election will be rescheduled, nothing else will.
3.) Silence often means a done deal
INEC chairman Yakubu hasn’t received detailed information from the security agencies’ regarding the “security reports” since the advice to postpone the election was leaked to the press.
No high ranking security official has been quoted anywhere offering a more lucid explanation.
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In Nigeria, that often means a press statement from Yakubu officially announcing the postponement, is about now being drafted and edited.
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Look, we may not be right on the money with our reasons here, but we’ve been around long enough to know how these things work.
![Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki [Facebook]](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf8,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D'http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg'%20width%3D'300'%20height%3D'172'%20data-ring-placeholder%3D'1'%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E "Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki [Facebook]")