Will elections be easier to rig now with INEC's postponement?

The problem the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the rest of us have to grapple with at the moment is this: Before INEC boss, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, announced the postponement of Nigeria’s general elections, ballot materials had already been dispatched to certain states, counties and hamlets. What happens to those materials now?

There is pervasive fear in the land that those election materials may have been compromised and that these compromised materials and paperwork will find their way back into the system on February 23 and March 9. This is Nigeria we are talking about here after all.

“There is the risk of manipulation”, says Kingsley Moghalu, presidential candidate of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) in a chat with Reuters. “Even if there was a need to postpone the election, it could have been done in a much tidier way that would not have exposed the process to these kinds of risks”, he adds.

Already, there have been reports of people being caught with computed result sheets declaring winners, hours before INEC announced a rescheduling of the vote.

Prof Mahmood Yakubu, INEC Chairman receives guest in office (Punch) Pulse Nigeria

One man who identified himself as Gaius, was caught in Abia State with a stash of documents declaring the PDP winner of the election in that State, long before voting was scheduled to commence.

There have been reports of sensitive voting materials finding their way into the wrong hands ahead of the rescheduled election, hacked INEC systems, ballot boxes and papers in the custody of politicians, compromised card reader machines and uncollected voters cards being sold to the highest bidders.

All of these reports are worrisome.

Reuters writes that there is a genuine fear that the paperwork that was distributed, only to be recalled hours before polling was due to begin, could be used to falsify information that will enable vote rigging in some areas.

Clement Nwankwo, convener of the Situation Room, which represents more than 70 civil society groups, tells journalists that there are “instances in which the ballots have been exposed”.

Prof. Kingsley Moghalu, YPP presidential candidate, thinks materials have been dangerously exposed (Pulse) Pulse Nigeria

Citing reports from some of the 9,000 observers who work with the Situation Room, Nwankwo notes that “there is concern over whether materials that have travelled are safe from partisan abuse. It would be an issue of how much manipulation this could mean.”

What is INEC’s next step for forestalling partisan abuse of already dispatched materials a week before the presidential and national assembly elections? Will new materials be reissued?

Will the materials already dispatched be returned to the CBN vaults and if yes, who is monitoring compliance, keeping inventory or tracking?

I agree with those who posit that INEC has to be rendering regular updates as Nigerians wait to exercise their franchise on the new announced dates. Postponing the election was bad in itself and avoidable. Not being one step ahead of the riggers will paint the electoral commission in more bad light.

If the goal is restoring credibility to the process and delivering free and fair elections, INEC should really be worried about compromised materials across the nooks and crannies of the country and the 176,000 polling units.