The African Democratic Congress Presidential Campaign Council has accused the Presidency of plotting to pressure the Independent National Electoral Commission into moving the January 16 presidential election, with the Ebola scare as cover. The allegation, contained in a statement issued on Wednesday by the council’s Director of Strategic Communication, Phrank Shaibu, comes exactly 80 days before Nigerians are due at the polls. Neither the Presidency nor INEC had responded to the claim as of Wednesday.
The council said it had received information that INEC Chairman, Professor Joash Amupitan, would be summoned to the Presidential Villa and instructed to alter the timetable. It urged Amupitan to reject any such instruction and to make the approach public immediately. “The election date belongs to Nigerians. It must not be rewritten behind closed doors at the Villa,” the council said. It did not, however, provide evidence that any such meeting had been arranged.
The opposition campaign tied its warning to the cost of living. The council said Nigerians had endured three and a half years of soaring prices, shrinking incomes and relentless hardship, and must be allowed to judge the Tinubu administration at the ballot box. “A government that has made life this difficult for Nigerians must not be allowed to postpone its day of judgement,” it said.
On Ebola itself, the council took a measured line. It described the disease as a serious public health concern, said health professionals must be free to contain it and called on INEC to protect voters and election workers. It also put INEC and domestic and international observers on notice that any proposal to change the timetable must be made openly and backed by published health evidence. “The Presidency must not use a health emergency to escape an electoral verdict,” it said.
Official figures so far point to a limited situation. According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, the country confirmed one case of Ebola caused by the Bundibugyo virus in the Federal Capital Territory on October 20. The patient, a 42-year-old woman, returned from Uganda through Addis Ababa on October 3, fell ill four days later and was seen at two private hospitals before the agency was notified on October 19. Bundibugyo is a strain for which there is currently no licensed vaccine.
The NCDC Director-General, Dr Jide Idris, said the woman was evacuated to Switzerland on October 26 with her husband, at the Swiss government’s request and expense, after her condition improved. He said 54 primary contacts remained under daily surveillance and that three who developed symptoms last week tested negative. A suspected case in Rivers State on October 23 also returned negative. The Federal Government has approved ₦100,000 weekly support for quarantined contacts to encourage cooperation.
Idris has addressed the election question directly. Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday, he said the outbreak would not be used for political ends and that a postponement was not necessary for now, while stressing that the decision was not his to make. “As at now there is no need for that,” he said. He also cautioned that having no active case did not mean Nigeria could yet be declared Ebola free.
Nigeria has been here before. In 2014, after Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer brought the virus into Lagos, the country recorded 20 confirmed cases and eight deaths across Lagos and Rivers States. The World Health Organisation declared Nigeria Ebola free on October 20, 2014, after the required 42 days without a new case, and described the response as a remarkable success. That record is one reason health officials have expressed confidence in the current containment effort.
Postponed elections are also a familiar part of Nigeria’s democratic history, which partly explains the sensitivity. In 2011, the National Assembly election was abandoned midway on April 2 over late delivery of materials, pushing the whole timetable back by a week. In 2015, INEC shifted the February 14 general elections by six weeks to March 28, citing security advice on the insurgency in the North East. In 2019, it postponed the presidential and National Assembly elections by one week, just hours before polls were due to open, over logistics.
Each of those delays drew accusations of political interference and cost voters, parties and observers time and money. Under Nigeria’s electoral law, the power to fix or adjust election dates rests with INEC rather than the Presidency. The commission has not announced any change to its published timetable, and the NCDC says contact monitoring will continue in the coming weeks.