The Nigerian president’s declaration of a public holiday has delayed a supreme court hearing into whether the vice-president may stand in next week’s election.
Olusegun Obasanjo has designated Thursday and Friday as a holiday, directly threatening the electoral campaign of Atiku Abubakar.
Garbu Shehu, Abubakar’s spokesman, said the holiday was a “pre-emptive strike to subvert the sitting of the [supreme] court”, which had been expected to start hearing the case on his exclusion from the list of candidates on Thursday.
Just got off the phone with a friend who’s a vote monitor during the elections. Not only may this scupper Atiku’s plans, but now all the banks are closed. There will be a lot of people wishing they had made a withdrawal today and not left it till tomorrrow morning…
People seem so used to last minute “surprises” like this . No one is really that shocked.
