Election Fever - POSTPONED!

Having had strict advice from VSO not to leave the house for all voting days; on Friday, I made sure I had plenty of things to eat and drink on Saturday and prepared for day one of “house arrest”!

I was very productive, pancakes for breakfast, mung beans cooked with coconut and chapattis for dinner, did my laundry, studied, watched two movies, but I began to understood the term “Cabin Fever”, which got worse when I found out the election had been postponed until Monday. However I thought I’d better not leave the house, unless VSO “released me” as there were rumours of trouble as people who were turned away from voting.

The election was postponed because the ballot papers had only arrived in the country at 9am on Saturday, polling booths were due to open at 8am. I fail to see why this couldn’t be announced on Friday, but one of my colleagues told me that it was to prevent allegations of fraud, or to stop trouble or some such.

So on Sunday, I had déjà vu of Friday, and prepared myself for another day of “house arrest”, for the Monday elections, only to be find out they were now to be held next Saturday. Both times I found out about the change of plan from friends postings on facebook, not from the BBC World Service which I listened to, VSO or the FCO travel advice to Nigeria.

To plan or not to plan, that is the question...

Nigerians and I have a different attitude towards planning, and towards making plans public. I find this strange, but as my Dad would tell me its not strange its different!



Actually Dad now denies this is his phrase but I distinctly remember him telling me it as a child, I can’t remember what “it” was!


When I started work at NEST I suggested that we had some kind of shared calendar, so that we would all know the whereabouts of our colleagues. To me this is a useful planning tool; to my colleagues it clearly seemed to be like something all together different, police state or something. They protested that there really wasn’t a problem, when staff travel away from the office they always let others know of their whereabouts!


Many planning / not planning / not sharing examples took place last week


On Tuesday – colleague A was not in the office, when I asked where he was somebody thought he had gone to Abuja but they weren’t sure when he would be back.


On Wednesday – colleague B and I met to plan some work, we planned a meeting on Friday with colleague C who was due back in the office that day after 10 days of external meetings. I also wanted to meet him on Friday regarding a different project.


On Thursday – I was due to meet colleague D, he was out of the office all day, as another colleague (more important than me) had sent him on another task.  I also found out that colleague C wouldn't be back on Friday when I had planned to meet him.


On Friday – the Governor of Oyo State, announced a public holiday, so that people could travel to vote the following day. Unfortunately I only had confirmation of this holiday at 7:30am, when I was about to leave for the office.


On Saturday – the President of INEC (the election commission) announced that that day’s elections would be postponed until Monday, as the ballot papers had not arrived in time.


On Sunday – the President of INEC announced that Monday’s elections would be postponed until the following Saturday to ensure that everyone gets a chance to vote.


Now I am sure behind each of these examples there is a good reason, perhaps because so many things are just outside of ones control, like an election being postponed, a public holiday being announced a big oga / boss telling you to drop everything and do something else.