Electorate in Anambra head to poll for Obiano’s successor, Saturday

[By VICTOR NZE]

Much-anticipated governorship election in Anambra to elect successor to Governor Willie Obiano will commence across the various polling stations in the state from this Saturday.

At the end of the weekend’s event , it is then left for the people to see if the ruling All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) has again leveraged on its traditional power of incumbency that has helped the party cling to the Government House in Awka for nearly 15 years, or whether the process would have produced a new face and political platform for the South East state.

That out of the way, the challenge presented by candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), All Progressives Congress (APC), as well as, the Accord Party and the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) remains a huge threat to APGA’s ambitions this time around.

The Anambra off-season election follows the ones conducted for Ondo and Edo states before the General Election in 2023.

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has cleared 18 candidates representing an equal number of political parties to jostle for the highly-coveted seat at the Government House in Awka for the next four years.

The Anambra governorship elections may well go down as one that was characterised by the most litigation which had trailed the initial primaries conducted by the political parties to elect flagbearers for the election proper.

All the major parties contesting the election had suits at the law courts to contend with, as internal crisis resolution mechanisms of each political party caved in under pressure of dissenting stakeholders’ voices over contentious processes for producing party candidates for this election.

None of the major political parties conducted its governorship primary devoid of rancour, whether the contention was genuine or aimed at destabilising the political structure was left to anybody to decipher.

The case was even more pronounced with the APC candidate, Andy Uba, who barely managed to convince the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja with about two days to the election, to differ its ruling on a suit filed by Dr George Moghalu over the disputed governorship primary of the party which purportedly held back in June, this year.

However, others like the ruling APGA and the PDP had to endure the suspense and trauma of going to the Supreme Court to resolve theirs. It was a period when Federal High Court judges at the various states competed among themselves over who is the champion of ex-parte motions.

For the INEC, it was a harrowing period contending with ‘forum shopping’ as the agency kept chopping and changing candidates’ list for the election following ridiculous court rulings and counter-injunctions that saw politicians and their political platforms engage each other in the art of ‘I know more judges than you.’

The litigation madness was finally brought to a halt with the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Tanko Mohammed threatening to use some judges as example to others on how to deal with abuse of indiscriminately court injunctions.

Furthermore, no other governorship election in the country has seen the extent of cross carpeting by politicians defecting from one party to the other. With weeks to the election day, running mates, serving deputy governors, local government and ward party chairmen were busy in the political transfer market switching platforms. Others were equally busy collapsing the party structure to adopt other party candidates.

Ironically, immediately the court option was shut by the CJN, these politicians reopened the defection route, as they changed parties in their droves.

Perhaps, the singular acts by both President Muhammad Buhari and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) paved the way for the elections to hold in Anambra.

While the President ordered his military chiefs and the INEC to ensure that nothing stops the Anambra election, IPOB on its party cancelled its controversial one week of sit-at-home order from November 5 to 10, all happening with barely two weeks to the D-day.

Those developments have gone a long way to ensuring that no other armed group in the South East region has any legitimate ground to seek to halt the electoral process of producing a new governor for Anambra State by the end of this weekend.

With well over 30, 000 police personnel, troops of the Nigerian Army in full battle fatigue, other security operatives on ground, in addition to flying machines in the form of police helicopters taking to the Anambra skies, resident may be permitted to think the state is under Marshall Law.

On the flipside, INEC will deploy the Biometric Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) device for the first time in a governorship election, as against the more popular smart card readers (SMCs) for the Saturday, November 6, governorship election in Anambra State.

National Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who disclosed this, Wednesday, during a stakeholders meeting on the Anambra State Governorship Election, added that the BVAS will replace the smart card readers in subsequent elections in the country following the system’s successful trialing at the Isoko South 1 State Constituency bye-election in Delta State on September 11 this year.

The smart card readers have been in use for elections in the country since 2015.

According to Prof. Yakubu, BVAS has the dual capacity for fingerprint and facial authentication of voters, and this, he said, is to guard against voting by identity theft where one person uses another person’s Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) to vote using the incident form.

Yakubu said that with the introduction of the BVAS device, the use of incident forms during elections has been abolished.

This is also as the INEC chairman said no voter without a genuine PVC will vote, adding; ‘no voter who has not been successfully accredited electronically using the BVAS will vote.’

“At the same time, the BVAS is also equipped with a camera. Therefore, it has the capacity to snap Polling Unit level result and upload same to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal so that citizens can view results as election is concluded in each Polling Unit.

“Therefore, there is no need for the Z-Pad since its functions have been embedded in the BVAS. I am glad to report that all the BVAS required for the election on Saturday have been configured and delivered to Anambra State. Election duty staff have also been trained on the use of the device and we have sufficient technical staff to respond to any glitches that may occur.

“I want to assure all voters in Anambra State that in designing the sensitive materials for the election, the Commission has introduced additional visible and invisible security features, including different colour codes. Materials have also been customized by Local Government Areas and Polling Units. Let me therefore warn those who may attempt to compromise the process that we have put in place sufficient safeguards to detect counterfeits. We are also determined to prosecute perpetrators of electoral malpractice, including any election duty staff found to be complicit. The choice of the next Governor of Anambra State is in the hands of the eligible voters and their will must prevail,” Yakubu said.

“The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Anambra State has just briefed us on our detailed preparations for the election, including logistics and the recruitment, training and deployment of election duty staff. Non-sensitive materials have been delivered to the 21 Local Government Areas of the State. The sensitive materials are secure in the branch of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) here in Awka.

According to the INEC chief, at the end of the recent Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise, a total of 138,802 citizens completed the registration. After cleaning up the data, the Commission identified and archived 62,698 multiple registrants.

“Consequently, the number of valid registrants is 76,104. This figure has been added to 5,674 requests for transfer, update of voter information and replacement of lost or damaged PVCs, bringing the total of valid registrations to 81,774. I am glad to report that the PVCs have been printed and delivered to all the Local Government Areas for collection by voters.

“On Saturday 6th November 2021, Anambra State will make history as the first Governorship election in Nigeria in which the Commission will deploy the Biometric Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) device. This new device replaces the Smart Card Reader (SCR) used in previous elections since 2015. We are satisfied with the pilot deployment of the BVAS in the Isoko South I State Constituency Bye-election in Delta State on 11th September 2021,” said the upbeat INEC chief.

The full list of candidates for the November 6 poll:

Party         Governor                      Deputy

A           Maduka Godwin              Obi Ifeatu

AA         Etiaba Chukwuogo          Uchebo Mwao

AAC       Nwankwo Chidozie         Nwaebili Clare

ADC       Akachukwu Nwankpo    Lawrence Ughamadu

ADP       Ume-Ezeoke Douglas     Maxwell Chukujama

APC        Andy Uba                         Chukwuemeka Okafor

APGA    Charles Soludo                 Ibezim Gilbert

APM      Onyejegbu Okwudili       Onuora Letitia

APP       Azubuike Echetebu          Ogbonna Nnabike

BP          Chika Okeke                     Chika Adibe

LP         Agbasimalo Emmanuel   Muokwue Peter

NNPP    Ohajimkpo Emeka           Nwude Ebelechukwu

NRM      Ezenwafor Victor            Ojukwu Chukwuma

PDP        Valentine Ozigbo             Lilian Enemo

PRP        Nnamdi Nwawuo            Igbo Gozie

SDP        Uzoh Godwin                  Chira Obiora

YPP        Ifeanyi Ubah                    Okechukwu Eze

ZLP         Okonkwo Francis            Jessie Uka