From Magnus Eze, Awka
The tension that preceded last Saturday’s governorship election in Anambra State has completely died down. From the election results declared so far, Prof Chukwuma Soludo of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) looks good for victory. The ruling party in the state is in an unassailable position.
The only snag to APGA’s victory dance is the supplementary election holding today in Ihiala LGA where the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) could not conduct the exercise on Saturday because it was not able to deploy materials to the wards and polling units. The LGA boasts of about 148,000 registered voters and by the electoral law, election must be conducted in such a place it did not take place if the number of votes there could substantially affect the outcome of the poll.
Nonetheless, a winner is expected to score 25percent of votes cast in at least two-thirds of the Local Government Areas in a state.
Anambra has 21 local government areas, so, a winner must therefore score 25 percent and above in at least 14 LGAs.
Based on results declared so far, only the APGA met and surpassed this requirement. The party has scored 25 per cent and above in the 20 LGAs whose results are known. It also won outright in 18 LGAs, with indications that the party may hit about 47 per cent of votes cast at the end of the day.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) trailing a distant second, scored 25 percent and above in 11 local governments. This figure will however drop if the scores of other candidates are factored in.
Yet, PDP winning 25 per cent at Ihiala will only push its number to 12, two short of the requirement for victory.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) and Young Progressives Party (YPP) both won one LGA each and presently scored about 22.41 percent and 9.13 percent respectively of the results so far announced.
The Ihiala exercise today might be an exercise in futility and a waste of resources for INEC. Many had expected INEC to declare the winner based on the results it has announced, but the umpire is determined to fulfill all righteousness.
Determined to win the election convincingly, the APGA-led government in the state, yesterday, assured Ihiala people that adequate security arrangements had been made to protect life and property during the election.
Secretary to Anambra State Government, Prof. Solo Chukwulobelu in a public announcement encouraged the people to come out and vote for the candidate of their choice.
One striking aspect of the election which the SSG noted was that the elections were successfully and peacefully held in the other 20 local government areas of the state and “no incidence of violence or voter molestation was recorded.”
Elections did not hold in Ihiala last Saturday, but it was gathered that some INEC officers who went to work in the area with hand in gloves with some unnamed politicians there, wanted to compromise the integrity of the electoral process.
Even as many have continued to praise the successes recorded by INEC and other critical stakeholders involved in the conduct of the Anambra election especially the security agencies, an independent observer to the election, Yiaga Africa, has blamed the electoral umpire for some of the hitches.
It flayed INEC for the late start of polls in several polling units of the state. Attributing the delays to poor logistics management, the group noted that it had anticipated these challenges following its pre-election observation, hence, their earlier statement urging INEC to make contingency plans in situations where respective transport unions/companies reneged on their contractual obligation to deploy.
A preliminary report by Samson Itodo (Executive Director) and Ezenwa Nwagwu (Board Member) said the late arrival of polling officials delayed the commencement of accreditation and voting across the affected polling units.
Through Yiaga Africa’s ‘Watching the Vote’ (WTV), it said the geographical distribution of materials indicated “that 64.3% of polling units in Anambra Central Senatorial district commenced accreditation and voting by 10:30 am, 60.3% of polling units in Anambra North while in Anambra South senatorial district, only 28.9% of polling units commenced accreditation and voting by 10:30 am.”
On deployment and non-functionality of Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS), the group said it received reports of the BVAS failure to authenticate voters’ fingerprints and photos even where voter details were confirmed on the voter register.
A rights group, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) accused the INEC of massive disenfranchisement of over 250,000 registered voters who had their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and defied raging state actor and non-state actor security threats and came out in their large numbers to cast their votes last Saturday.
Board Chairman of Intersociety in a statement released in Onitsha said the over 250,000 voters were disenfranchised by INEC and its Information Communications Technology (ICT) following widespread failure of the Commission’s BVAS.
“The INEC’s mass disenfranchisement affecting over 250,000 voters also outnumbered those chased away or forced out of the state by drafted security forces as well as the self-determination agitators. While INEC and its ICT are responsible for disenfranchisement of over 250,000 voters with PVCs, security forces and agitators accounted for threat-disenfranchisement of over 200,000 others,” the group alleged.
It said that between 700,000 to 800,000 persons were projected to have cast their votes from the over 2.2million persons with PVCs in the state.
Intersociety, however, alleged that the BVAS’ failure was part of rigging plans of the INEC but was unable to be reversed at the eleventh hour.
It claimed that “The eleventh hour irreversibility of the crookedly programmed or formatted BVAS’ failure had arisen following the sustained outcries and pressures from Anambra’s who-is-who that Anambra Governorship poll results must be derived from the ‘living voters’ and must not be written on a table.”
Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige was one of the victims of technology failure as he was not able to cast his vote at the Polling Unit 010, Nkwo-Ide, Alor Ward One, in Idemili South Local Government Area.
The Minister had stayed about two hours undergoing accreditation but the process failed after about 70 attempts; he left and returned again, yet all efforts were futile. He gave up at about 4:45pm.
He put the failure rate of accreditation machines in his area at over 30 percent but advised INEC to always test run their equipment at least a week before election to ensure they are functional.
Determining factors
It is doubtful whether Anambra has had a competitive election in recent times like the November 6 poll. Previous governorship elections were chiefly predictable.
Several factors came to play in making the election what it was. APGA was the party to beat in the election but many people had anticipated some form of surprises from the APC. Its flag bearer, Senator Andy Uba had deflated the ranks of APGA to the point of grabbing Governor Willie Obiano’s deputy, Dr. Nkem Okeke. Many other chieftains from APGA, PDP and other political parties including lawmakers in the National and State Legislatures also defected to back Uba’s aspiration.
But APGA had insisted that its goal was for Soludo to succeed Obiano for the sake of continuity. It banked on its grassroots model, banding the slogan of ‘Nkaa bu nke anyi’ (This is ours), while appealing to the people to ensure that the light its spiritual leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu handed to them did not go off.
Many observers of Anambra politics are wont to believe that APGA did not do anything spectacular to win the election. Though internal wrangling arising from the party’s contentious primary election in June worked against it, but the other two parties; APC and PDP were not spared of such burden.
Some notable governorship aspirants on the platform of the PDP like Dr. Obiora Okonkwo and Dr. Godwin Maduka had abandoned the party following the controversial manner the party’s primazzzry election was held on June 26 leading to the emergence of Valentine Ozigbo as candidate.
Although Okonkwo and Maduka did not make appreciable impact in the election proper as candidates of Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) and Accord Party, there is no doubt that their withdrawal from the PDP coupled with the series of litigations bugging the party was huge minus to it.
For the APC, its candidate, Andy Uba was seen as a surrogate of the North. The campaign message was simple; that Uba would open the way for Fulani herders to take over people’s land in the South East for Ruga or cattle colony. There was also the allegation that the candidate had already promised President Muhammadu Buhari and the North that they would have a foothold in Anambra if he emerged victories.
The foregoing made it very difficult for the APC campaign message to permeate the grassroots. Instead, Daily Sun was told that several people who rushed to the party were more interested in what they could make in the immediate.
Another challenge for the APC was the voodoo nature of the party’s governorship primary election. While many still maintain that there was no primary in the state including INEC officials, Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State and his APC primary election committee declared that Uba was winner of the purported exercise with over 200,000 votes.
The outcome of that process is still an issue of litigation in the Federal High Court, Abuja Division where another contestant, Dr. George Moghalu had gone to seek redress. The court was to have delivered judgment on the eve of the election, but the process was arrested and shifted to a later date.
Like Moghalu, leader of the party in the state and Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige declined to support the Uba candidacy insisting that he was not elected by the party members.
What the foregoing meant was that three of the four leading candidates had to battle with internal crises within their parties. It was only the candidate of the YPP, Senator Ifeanyi Ubah that his ticket was not in contention.
So, the implication was that these candidates all suffered internal sabotage with many party members working against the candidates of their respective parties. In this case, APGA seemed to have more hands on group; coupled with the Igbo sentiment associated with the party, it was not surprising that the party is poles ahead others in the election.