From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Enugu
Worried by the threats of insecurity in the South East, some Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in region yesterday urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to postpone shift the November 6 governorship election in Anambra State.
The CSOs said that both INEC’s assurances and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)’s clarifications were not enough to guarantee security for the election.
Shifting the election they said would douse tensions and fears “created and inflicted on the general population” especially the voters.
They also noted that it would provide the INEC and other stakeholders including security agencies, political parties, their candidates and agents the opportunity to re-strategize “including reducing fears and deploying peace and dispute resolution mechanisms and demilitarization of the electoral space.”
While INEC had recently assured of its “readiness and preparedness” to go ahead with the Anambra Governorship Election on Saturday, November 6, IPOB on Thursday explained that its seven-day sit-at-home protest in the South East starting from November 5, was not a call for boycott of the Anambra governorship election.
But, in a statement yesterday by the CSOs which include International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety); the Southeast Zone of the Civil Liberties Organization (Southeast CLO) and the Southeast Based Coalition of Democracy and Human Rights Organization (SBCHROs), they insisted that INEC’s assurances to go ahead with the election on November 6 were totally contrary to the present realities on the ground.
The statement signed on their behalf by Emeka Umeagbalasi, Aloysius Attah and Prof Jerry Chukwuokoro, stressed that INEC assurances “can only be smiled at by state actor and non state actor poll riggers. That is to say therefore that the Commission’s assurances are dead on arrival and repugnant to conditions for free and fair elections particularly the referenced Anambra governorship election.
“If the commission is truly ready to conduct all-inclusive and credible governorship election in Anambra State, it ought to be deeply worried and concerned and should not have given such ‘assurances of the graveyard.”
Noting that they have carefully analyzed the clarifications given by the secessionist group on the seven-day sit-at-home, the CSOs said they hold water adding, “It is therefore correct to say that by all intents and purposes, the suddenly declared sit-at-home and its timing are targeted at scuttling the Anambra governorship poll and provide grounds for the poll to be massively and scientifically rigged by the establishment …”
Insisting that INEC had no other credible option than to shift the Anambra governorship election for one month, the CSOs said, “This is if the agitators (IPOB) insist on going ahead with their five days electoral disruptive sit-at-home threats.
”Apart from proving the agitators right or wrong by shifting the date of the poll and if they target and impose another sit-at-home to disrupt the poll, this will also enable the tensions and fears created and inflicted on the general population especially the voters to drastically reduce and provide the commission and other stakeholders including security agencies, political parties, their candidates and agents to re-strategize including reducing fears and deploying peace and dispute resolution mechanisms and demilitarization of the electoral space.”