April Fools' Day is
celebrated in different countries around the world on the
April 1 of every year. Sometimes referred to as All Fools'
Day, April 1 is not a national holiday, but is widely
recognized and celebrated as a day when many people play all
kinds of jokes and foolishness. The day is marked by the
commission of good humoured or funny jokes, hoaxes, and
other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends,
family members, teachers, neighbors, work associates, etc
Although, the day is usually first of April but the INEC
chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega made his own April fool on 2nd
of April, 2011. Jega who is the chief executive officer of
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is aware of
the fact that Nigerians needs a free and fair elections and
are desperate to have one; used his position of office to
fool the whole nation with his “trial election”
The National Assembly elections which was scheduled for 2nd
April 2011 was billed to start with accreditation of voters
between 8am and 12noon while the voting proper starts at
12.30 pm. As stipulated the exercise started as early as 8am
with the restriction of movement of vehicles nationwide and
patrol vehicles of security operatives were noticed moving
from one polling unit to another. Report has it that
accreditation started as early as 8.50am in some part of the
country while people were complaining lack of INEC staff and
materials in many parts.
To exhibit his skill in fooling millions of people, Prof
Jega who is a Professor of Political science made a
nationwide broadcast around 1pm on Saturday April 2nd
calling off the NASS elections due to logistics reason. He
said the election has been postponed till Monday, 4th April
2011.
He said all of the materials are already in the country and
some have even reached the states. He said the
disappointment was caused by a vendor who was supposed to
deliver the materials by Thursday (Why waiting till
Thursday?). According to him they did not deliver on
Thursday because they said several Boeing 747's were being
used for the relief efforts in "Japan and Libya" and this
affected their transportation plans. They assured the
materials would arrive by Friday (A day to our national
election and he kept on saying all is well). Aircraft were
already on standby at airports to transport the materials
across the country (Does he know that Nigeria has a compact
area of 923,768 square kilometers and 356,376 square miles;
36 states; 774 local government; 9752 political wards and
Tens of thousands polling boots?)
He said unfortunately, the materials did not arrive in Lagos
until 9:00am this morning (Election day: He kept mum and
people said he knew what he was doing).
After fooling millions of Nigerians by calling off the
elections in the first day, the INEC boss appealed for calm
but unfortunately, our most revered Prof Jega fooled and
disappointed Nigerians again by shifting the election again
till Saturday April 9th 2011 on account of stakeholders
wish; after meeting with the representatives of political
parties on Sunday.
The move threw most Governor into confusion as most of them
started reversing their work free order for Monday April 4th
2011. Lazy workers were complaining for lack of preparation
for work on Monday morning due to previous work-free order
from state governments.
Some Nigerians perceived that Prof. Jega’s April fool is
still on as they keep asking question on how Prof Jega will
get the logo and names of some political parties that are
missing on the ballot paper fixed within a week considering
the time he used to prepare the first one and the “Japan and
Libya” issue; bearing in mind that the ballot papers are not
printed in Nigeria!.
Are we going to get another April fool from Prof. Jega? …..
Only time will tell
Kazeem Olowe
Public Affairs Analyst
