Abuja---Nigeria's election commission met on Saturday to discuss the possibility of a minimum six-week delay to voting on security grounds, lawmakers said.
Africa's most populous nation and leading economy is set to go to the polls next Saturday but there have been mounting concerns about security and also the distribution of voter cards.
Bashir Yusuf, head of the smaller opposition Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), said the closed-door talks at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had been about postponement.
"The main agenda of the meeting (was) for the political parties to advise INEC on the basis of a request made by the national security advisor that the military is engaged in certain sensitive operations in the northeastern part of the country and that because of this it will be unable to provide adequate security for the elections," he told reporters.
"On the basis of that the national security advisor has requested INEC to consider rescheduling the elections for at least a period of six weeks."
INEC chairman Attahiru Jega had earlier only said that the meeting was called to give delegates information on "new developments" in the organisation of the February 14 poll.
A news conference is scheduled for later on Saturday.
Jega has been under pressure to announce a delay to the presidential and parliamentary poll because not all of the 68.8 million registered voters have received their cards.
The northeast is also in the grip of a violent Boko Haram insurgency, which has left hundreds of thousands of people displaced and as a result unable to cast their ballot.
At the same time, Nigerian, Chadian, Nigerien and Cameroonian troops have begun a joint fight-back to curb the threat to regional security from the Islamist group.
The national secretary of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Wale Oladipo, said they would "abide by any decision taken by INEC".
But Yusuf said that some parties present at the meeting, including the main opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), were against any delay.
The PDP's President Goodluck Jonathan has been pushed hard by the APC's Muhammadu Buhari, with predictions that the result is too close to call.
AFP
