WHILE opening the current session of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,  President of the Senate, Senator David Mark, made comments which some interpreted as meaning that Nigeria is not even contemplating holding the 2015 general elections.

This was contained in his keynote address entitled: “Threat to National Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity of Nigeria by Insurgents”. He was quoted as saying: “there is no question of elections; it is not even on the table now. We are in a state of war”.

This drew a firestorm of criticisms, and one of the groups that weighed in on the controversy was a coalition of civil society organisations. Speaking on behalf of others, Mr Clement Nwankwo of the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC) said a postponement of the election would be admission by government of its failure to secure the lives and property of Nigerians and protect the nation from internal and external threats. A media aide of the Senate President fired back, accusing a section of the media of misrepresenting his boss, adding that Mark never made such a call.

We are not interested in whether the Senate President’s comments amounts to an indication that the general election of 2015 might be postponed. We are here to affirm that the elections must hold. Everything possible must be done to ensure that the Nigerian electorate is provided its constitutionally guaranteed right to decide who will run governments at all levels.

Nigerians reserve the right to pass their verdict on those they gave their mandates in previous elections and allow them to continue in office if they have the constitutional backing to do so, or replace them with new hands.

It is high time we, as a people, realised the importance of the democratic and constitutional system of self-rule we have chosen for ourselves. It is something that has come here to stay. No crises or hiccups in the system should serve as enough excuse to truncate our democracy, even if through unconstitutional shift of dates.

We must learn from the experience of India, the largest democracy in the world, where elections have held routinely since 1947 when that country gained independence, despite losing Pakistan and Bangladesh and getting mired in  unending crises with Pakistan and the clashes over Kashmir. Here in Africa, Egypt still defied a revolution and upheavals to conduct elections.

We must hold our elections in spite of insurgency in the north east. In fact, we must see the defeat of Boko Haram as an incentive to enable us hold elections all over the country in 2015 and shame those who thought they could derail the nation by instigating or supporting the insurgency.