Despite assurances by the Independent National Electoral Commission that today’s supplementary election in Anambra State will be hitch-free, voters’ apathy may mar the election billed to hold in 210 polling units in 15 local government areas of the state.
The apathy, Saturday PUNCH learnt, stemmed from the disappointment of voters in the last governorship election held penultimate week and the uncertainty surrounding today’s election.
The uncertainty, Saturday PUNCH gathered, had also been compounded by calls for the boycott of the supplementary election by major parties and candidates that contested the main election on November 16.
Many of the voters in the areas where the election is scheduled to take place today told Saturday PUNCH that they were not interested in voting and were also confused because of the popular calls for the boycott of the election.
Some of them said it appeared to them that the winner of the election had already been predetermined by INEC and their collaborators, therefore their going to vote would be meaningless.
Three of the major contestants in the election called for the boycott of the election after INEC failed to cancel the entire election, following complaints that the conduct of the election failed to conform substantially with the requirements of the Electoral Act.
The three candidates are Senator Chris Ngige of the All Progressives Congress, Mr. Tony Nwoye of the Peoples Democratic Party and Mr. Ifeanyi Ubah of the Labour Party.
But INEC said it was fully prepared to conduct the election in all the polling units affected in the supplementary election. As at Thursday evening electoral materials had been moved from the INEC headquarters in Awka to the affected local government areas.
The Public Relations Officer of INEC in Awka, Mr. Frank Egbo, said the sensitive materials would be moved to the Super Registration Areas by Friday night, so that early on Saturday, they would be moved to the polling units in readiness for the election.
But Mr. Frank Obi, a community leader from Umuoji in Idemili North Local Government Area, told Saturday PUNCH that he doubted if the people would turn out to vote on Saturday.
Obi, who said people in his locality did not vote on November 16, said his people would not turn out to vote because they do not believe that the supplementary election would change anything.
“If there is no cancellation, nothing will change. If INEC has accepted that it made errors in the initial election and has apologised, what remains is for them to throw aside the outcome of that flawed election and conduct a fresh one.
“I am not saying that a certain candidate must win or lose. Anybody who is losing should lose gallantly. We do not accept a situation where it has appeared to us that the vote has been manipulated to favour one candidate from outset and they are only trying to use us to validate and legitimise it,” he said.
Meanwhile, heavy security has been mounted in areas where the governorship supplementary election will take place on Saturday in Anambra State.
A visit to the affected wards in Idemili North and Onitsha South Local Government Areas of the state on Friday showed a heavy presence of policemen, who mounted checkpoints. Trucks and Armoured Personnel Carriers and police officials around the locality.
The security beef up came on the heels of the protest by more than one thousand women, who massed around the road to the INEC headquarters, Awka, on Friday, to protest against the holding of the supplementary election.
The women were, however, stopped from proceeding to the gate of INEC by heavily armed policemen who came in six trucks. But they stayed over at Arroma Junction where they sang and called for the removal of INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, and the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Chukwuemeka Onukaogu.
This came on the heels of an 18-hour restriction placed by the police on vehicular movements in two local government councils.
In separate statements issued on Friday, the Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, and the Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Emeka Chukwuemeka, named the local governments as Idemili North and Onitsha South.
They said the restriction would begin at midnight on Friday and end at 6 p.m. on Saturday.
The police and INEC said the restriction of movement was to ensure a successful and peaceful conduct of the supplementary election. The supplementary election will hold in 160 polling units in Idemili-North while it will take place in 17 polling units in Onitsha-South.
The police and INEC officers warned travellers passing through the state to find alternative routes during the period.
But they, however, said the restriction would not affect movement along federal highways, particularly the Bridge Head end of the Onitsha – Enugu expressway through Onitsha to other parts of the country.
The police statement also warned politicians and other individuals against moving about with security details during the voting exercise, saying that anybody who flouts this order will be arrested and prosecuted.
It said, “These measures are geared toward a hitch-free conduct of election in the state on the aforementioned dates.”
Meanwhile, INEC PRO, has said that election materials are expected to be moved from the Super Registration Areas to the polling units between 5.30 am and 7am on Saturday.
He said INEC has put everything in place to ensure that the election was conducted smoothly.
Election in 210 polling units, where 113,113 voters could not vote on November 16 were cancelled. The Chief Returning Officer, Prof. James Epoke, consequently declared supplementary election in those polling units, which cut across 15 local government areas.
Epoke said the Electoral Act required that for a winner to be declared in an election, the difference in the total voting population of the areas where election was cancelled should be less than the difference between the votes scored by the candidate with the highest votes and the votes of the candidate with the second highest votes.
In the Anambra case, the returning officer said the total voting population of the areas in which election was cancelled is 113,113, which is higher than the 79,754 difference between the leading candidate’s votes and the second highest candidate’s votes, the commission had no choice but to declare the election inconclusive.
“The rule guiding this election is that for a winner to emerge, he must have majority of votes cast and the required spread of 25 percent of votes in two thirds of the local government areas.
“We observed that due to many reasons there were a lot of canceled votes that make it difficult for a winner to emerge,” Epoke said.
He said the winner of the election will only be declared after the election has been conducted in areas where the election was cancelled.
Epoke explained that election was cancelled in the respective polling units where they were cancelled for a number of reasons ranging from snatching of ballot materials; delivering of coded ballot materials to wrong collation centres and the non-arrival of election materials at polling units.
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