尼日利亚大选因准备工作不足被推迟一周

Nigeria's president has appealed for calm after the last-minute postponement of today's highly anticipated elections. The head of the electoral commission, Mahmood Yakubu,

made the late-night announcement just five hours before voting was set to start, explaining a one-week delay. NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton is in the capital, Abuja, and joins us now. Ofeibea, thanks so much for being with us.

Greetings. And why the delay?

Well, the electoral commissioner says it was because of logistical problems. Voting materials have apparently not been delivered to all the remote parts of Nigeria.

And there've been a series of fires destroying smartcard readers and voting cards. Now, Mahmood Yakubu says it was simply not feasible to proceed with these key elections today

and that the delay will ensure that the electoral commission and Nigeria hold free, fair and credible elections. But those explanations are not going to wash

because why, just five hours before the polling stations were meant to open? Surely, many people are saying, this should have been known weeks ago or at least at the beginning of the week.

What about the reaction from candidates? First of all, let me tell you that Nigeria's president,

who had gone all the way to the north to Katsina State where his hometown is, Daura, has appealed to his compatriots to remain peaceful, patriotic and united after the 11th-hour announcement.

But as a candidate, because, of course, President Muhammadu Buhari is seeking re-election, his party - the two main parties, Buhari's All Progressives Party and his main challenger, Atiku Abubakar's People's Democratic Party,