Abuja — ACTION Congress of Nigeria (ACN) yesterday, described as unrealistic, the 2011 elections time-table release by the Independent National Electoral Commission  (INEC).
INEC had on Tuesday released the time-table, which showed that the staggered elections will hold on January 2011.
While the National Assembly electioin will hold on January 15, the presidential election is scheduled for January 22. In the same vein, the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections are expected to take place on January 29.
But reacting to the development, the ACN through a press statement signed by the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, warned that to avoid the pitfalls of the past, where billions of naira are spent in election without commiserate results, the National Assembly should suspend the implementation of the amended constitution, until after the 2011 general elections to enable INEC conduct the election in April 2011.
The problem of impossible time-lines which the elections face now was not created by INEC, but by the choreographed delayed amendment of the Constitution by the National Assembly. By releasing the timetable therefore, INEC has simply demonstrated its readiness to comply with both the provisions of the new Electoral Act and the amended Constitution,it said. ACN, however, said in reality, INEC knows that elections cannot hold in January 2011 for many reasons.
From our investigations, INEC is yet to award the contract for the procurement of the 120,000 DDC needed for the fresh voter registration. It will take a minimum of 10 weeks from the date of award for the machines to arrive in Nigeria, and INEC will require a minimum period of three weeks to complete registration and display the new register for claims and objections.
The party said it would take another eight weeks to integrate the data from the over 120,000 polling units before INEC can commence printing of new voters cards. Saying It is therefor clear that INEC cannot have the new voters register ready before 21 weeks from today, even if the contract for the procurement  of the 120,000 DDC machines were to be awarded today, which will bring us to the first or second week in February 2011. We are almost in the month of January for which the elections have been scheduled, the party said.
ACN said no one could blame INEC for the situation, saying the blame lies squarely on the doorsteps of the National Assembly, which wasted so much time before the new Electoral Act and the amended Constitution were enacted into law, even as the latter is being challenged by the Presidency at the Supreme Court.
We know for sure that it was clearly not the intention of the
PDP-dominated National Assembly to give us a new credible voters register, hence the new law prescribing elections for January. In fact, until Nigerians kicked against it, the old voters register was to be used for the conduct of the 2011 polls, which would have sealed the fate of the polls.
There is nothing sacrosanct about elections in January 2011. Afterall, it is not as if all election petitions can be disposed off between January and May 2011, were the polls to hold in January.We therefore demand, unequivocally, that INEC be given adequate time to do a thorough job. The 2011 elections are critical to the survival of our democracy and the realisation of the consistent pledge by President Goodluck Jonathan to organise free, fair and credible polls. We cannot afford to fail,the party said.