As expected, many residents of Anambra refused to turn up for the supplementary election conducted on Saturday by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the governorship seat of Anambra State.
Following this mass voter apathy, the Campaign for Democracy (CD) asked Nigerians to blame INEC for the lack of interest shown by the people for the exercise.
Many observers who were in the state to monitor the exercise conducted in the 210 polling units scattered across the state returned with complaints that apart from the refusal of residents to come out to vote, they also flouted the INEC directive restricting movement of people during the exercise. Many of the residents, it was learnt, went about the duties with the excuse that the result of the election had been concluded even before the exercise was conducted.
While some said they refused to vote in protest of the poor outing of INEC in the previous exercise, others admitted that they were obeying instructions from some of the candidates not to partake in the election.
Senator Chris Ngige of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ifeanyi Uba of the Labour Party (LP) and Tony Nwoye of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had vowed not to partake in the supplementary election.
Chairman of Campaign for Democracy in the South-East Region, Mr Uzor Uzor linked the refusal of the people to come out to INEC’s refusa to carry out enough sensitization programmes before the election.
He described the poor outing as unfortunate, saying in some areas, the residents said they were not aware that the exercise would be held on Saturday and that they were surprised to see electoral officers in their various communities.
According to him, “they should have been informed over and over again before the election on the need to cancel their various engagements and attend the exercise. I even learnt that some of the people were not told or made to know that there will be a fresh election in their units due to some irregularities”.
He however confirmed that some of the voters refused to vote because they believed some of the candidates had boycotted the supplementary election. Uzor further said where residents would have come out to vote, the presence of heavily armed security operatives did not help the situation.
“The heavy presence of security men could have given the impression that all is not well in the minds of the residents of the areas affected”, he lamented.
Election peaceful
Huhuonline.com can confirm that the election went peacefully and that materials arrived in many of the units as early as possible. However, despite this, the number of eligible voters was very low. In most units, electoral officials were seen idling away and waiting for the voters.
In some of the units, officials explained that they only accredited not more than 24 throughout the exercise. A visit to the Akpakaogwe polling unit, Ogidi Ward 1 in Idemili Local Government showed that the residents were not prepared for the exercise as the officials said residents stayed put in their houses while others went about their normal businesses as if nothing was happening. In the unit, a little over 56 voters were accredited out of 830 registered voters at the unit. At Nkpor Uno in Isingwu village, out of the 983 registered voters, only 30 were accredited to vote.
PDP against its candidate
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had a hard time with its candidate in the election, Tony Nwoye, as the party insisted that it was going ahead with the supplementary election while its candidate said he remained resolute that he was not part of the exercise.
Nwoye had joined Ngige and Uba to reject the November 16 exercise in which his name and the names of his family members were absent from the voters’ register. He also complained of a series of irregularities that marred the exercise.
When contacted, Nwoye said he did not partake in the election and was not even close to Awka throughout the supplementary election. But the party chairman in the state, Prince Ken Emeakayi insisted that the party would partake. It sent its agents to the polling units to show that it took part in the exercise.
Did APC Participate?
There were allegations that the All Progressives Congress took part in the supplementary as against its stand that it was boycotting the exercise with its candidate.
Chris Ngige, its candidate in the election, had called a joint press conference where he made the collective grievances of some of the candidates known and said they were boycotting the supplementary election.
However, most of the polling units where the exercise was conducted had agents of the APC. But the governorship candidate of the party was nowhere around any of the polling units.
Although the party is yet to react to this, many within the party claim that the agents were planted by the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to give the impression that Ngige had betrayed Uba and Nwoye.
Confirming that the APC agents were present at the polling units, the PDP chairman in the state said: “While they (APC) are out there saying they are not participating, APC agents are everywhere, including this polling unit”.
