Nigeria's presidential election is postponed for a week
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Nigeria's election commission postponed the country's presidential election early Saturday morning, announcing the delay only hours before polls were set to open. The vote has been rescheduled for next Saturday, Feb. 23.
Both Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and the leading opposition candidate, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, urged the public to remain calm about the delay, though Abubakar also accused Buhari of orchestrating the postponement to disenfranchise opposition voters.
Election officials attributed the wait to difficulty transporting ballots to all polling locations in time for voting to begin. "This was a difficult decision to take but necessary for successful delivery of the elections and the consolidation of our democracy," said the election commission's chair, Mahmood Yakubu, who will explain the postponement further in an afternoon press conference.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
-
How are Democrats trying to reform ICE?Today’s Big Question Democratic leadership has put forth several demands for the agency
-
Silicon Valley: Worker activism makes a comebackFeature The ICE shootings in Minneapolis horrified big tech workers
-
Catherine O'Hara: The madcap actress who sparkled on ‘SCTV’ and ‘Schitt’s Creek’Feature O'Hara cracked up audiences for more than 50 years
-
Judge rejects California’s ICE mask ban, OKs ID lawSpeed Read Federal law enforcement agents can wear masks but must display clear identification
-
Lawmakers say Epstein files implicate 6 more menSpeed Read The Trump department apparently blacked out the names of several people who should have been identified
-
Japan’s Takaichi cements power with snap election winSpeed Read President Donald Trump congratulated the conservative prime minister
-
Trump sues IRS for $10B over tax record leaksSpeed Read The president is claiming ‘reputational and financial harm’ from leaks of his tax information between 2018 and 2020
-
Trump, Senate Democrats reach DHS funding dealSpeed Read The deal will fund most of the government through September and the Department of Homeland Security for two weeks
-
Fed holds rates steady, bucking Trump pressureSpeed Read The Federal Reserve voted to keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged
-
Judge slams ICE violations amid growing backlashSpeed Read ‘ICE is not a law unto itself,’ said a federal judge after the agency violated at least 96 court orders
-
Rep. Ilhan Omar attacked with unknown liquidSpeed Read This ‘small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work’
