International response to last week’s postponement of Nigeria’s presidential and general elections may have provoked serious worries and consideration of the option of targeted sanctions on certain government and security officials by the US government in Washington DC and other western capitals.
A White House spokesperson Edward C. Price had exclusively informed Empowered Newswire that the US government had been deeply disappointed about the delay in the date of the Nigerian polls, even after the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, had hurriedly issued a strong worded condemnation of the decision last Saturday evening.
Sources reveal that there are now considerations within the US official circles for possible sanctions that will target specific government and security officials in Nigeria should there be any further “threat” to the holding of the elections.
It was explained that it is because of this possibility of sanctions such as visa restrictions on already identified security and presidency officials that the US is now insisting that the new dates must not be changed.
One of America’s leading newspaper, Washington Post, also did an editorial during the week, specifically Tuesday February 10 that warned that “the looming danger is that Mr. Jonathan and his military supporters will attempt to further delay the elections.” In fact the editorial called on White House to take steps to insist on no further delay of the polls by saying “the Obama administration should now enlist European and African states in a diplomatic offensive to insist that the elections go forward.”
Criticising the delay, the newspaper stated that it “has not only endangered the country’s fragile democracy but also greatly increased the risk that Africa’s most populous country will collapse into civil strife.” The newspaper noted that it observed that the military in Nigeria had forced the postponement.
The Post added regarding Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan’s perceived role in the delay of the polls that while he “has appeared indifferent to the terrorists’ advances, made no secret of his desire to put off the election. The president appears to calculate that with six more weeks to campaign with vastly more resources than his challenger, he will be able to establish a decisive advantage.”
In fact the worries about the delay of the polls were so deep in the US that the Nigerian Ambassador to the US, Prof Ade Adefuye, disclosed that he had been inundated all week with calls from both the US government including the Congress, the media and the society at large.
