Nigerian opposition political parties have called for the resignation of the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Attahiru Jega for postponing Saturday's National Assembly election.
Jega announced the postponement of the election till April 4 due to logistic problems, more than four hours into the exercise.
He said the postponement was a difficult but necessary decision for a free and fair poll.
The association of opposition parties, under the aegis of Patriotic Alliance of Nigeria (PAN), said Jega had no reason to cancel the exercise midway into voting.
The PAN Coordinator Maxi Okwu said the postponement showed Jega as incompetent.
"I am highly disappointed because this is the first time, since 1999, that I have been accredited to vote and my hopes were dashed, " he
added.
"My people here in Oji River, Enugu State came out excited but were denied voting," he said.
The secretary of the southwest Zone of the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties Austin Nnorom said the postponement showed that INEC
was not ready for the polls.
"The INEC has shown Nigerians and the world at large that the huge sum disbursed towards achieving credible polls is a mirage," he added.
"Jega's reasons are not cogent; he should give way for another electoral process to commence," Nnorom said.
A former chieftain of the Alliance for Democracy, Musa Umar, said the postponement was surprising.
"This is the first time in the history of Nigeria that an election is postponed on the day fixed for it," he added.
Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, who voted shortly before the postponement, also expressed disappointment at the action, which
he described as hasty.
"If after all this planning the INEC could not get it right, how are we sure that it will get it right on Monday (April 4),," he added.
He said rather than postpone it till Monday the National Assembly poll should have been merged with the April 9 presidential poll.
Fashola advised the INEC to liaise with political parties and work out the necessary logistics to make the rescheduled election successful.
Former Governor Bola Tinubu of Lagos blamed the postponement on the National Assembly which, he said, failed to promptly give INEC all it needed for the election.
However, the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji, commended the INEC Chairman for being bold enough to tell Nigerians that the commission still had challenges.