ELECTIONS in Nigeria are assuming new dimensions – may be not the ones we expected. In the place of the free, fair, and credible elections Professor Attahiru Jega, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, promised, what Nigerians got on Saturday was no election at all.

No explanations are acceptable for this national embarrassment. Once, we complained of elections that did not comply with standards of transparency. On Saturday, electoral materials arrived the country an hour after accreditation of voters should have started.

INEC called what happened logistic challenges. We call it a logical shame that demands logical redemption.  In fact, it appears Jega was deceptive in his plans for the election.

Three days to the elections, he spoke with such authority about the readiness of INEC. Before then, he told the National Council of States that INEC was ready.

“We in INEC are ready and prepared,’ he said on Wednesday. “Whoever is not ready to abide by the new work ethics in INEC will have to look for work elsewhere.” Even as he spoke, there had been delays in the arrival of electoral materials – he knew.

Nigeria was shut down: borders closed, businesses postponed, plans put on hold for the elections. INEC got everything it wanted. The Constitution was amended in quick successions to accommodate INEC’s reversed timetables. INEC received financial approvals in record times and got soldiers when it said the police could not do the work alone.

What else should anyone have done for Jega and company? When did INEC know electoral materials would arrive late? Does Jega appreciate the implications of the postponement of the election, the first, in such scale throughout the country? Does he know that INEC under him has recorded the worst result in the country’s elections? With all the promises of better election management Jega still thought if materials arrived on Friday he could get them round the country. He has really learnt!

It is not enough to shift blames. Nigerians know Jega, not a printer who failed to deliver. Nigerians expected neither the type of shame the country suffered on Saturday, nor the further disruption of their lives that today’s election would cause. Nigerians invested money and their emotions in the election. INEC’s shoddiness is a most inappropriate, unacceptable return on these investments.

References to the crises in Japan and Libya as being responsible for the late arrival of the materials form part of Jega’s efforts to shield himself from responsibility for INEC’s monumental failure.

Jega has apologised. He has accepted responsibility for the disgrace. He has also failed in admitting the full extent of the embarrassment he caused the country. His relative acceptance of responsibility is unacceptable.

As INEC chairman, he has to go a step further by resigning. He should have done so while offering his apologies on Saturday. He has proved incapable of managing the elections after boasting for months that he was ready.

The best apology he can offer Nigerians is his resignation, which should mark a new chapter in the question for responsible leadership in INEC.