Did INEC Goof in Anambra Poll?

IN THE ARENA

With the November 6 Anambra State governorship poll tidied up, the Independent National Electoral Commission must up its game ahead of 2023 general election, especially against the background of embarrassing glitches it experienced, Louis Achi writes

Some 48 hours ago in Awka, Anambra State, an elated former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Governor-elect of Anambra State, Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo, spoke: “I have just received my certificate of return from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Thank you, Ndị Anambra, for the overwhelming support. This divine mandate shall be deployed for the good of the Anambra public and humanity at large.”

The nation’s electoral management body, the INEC had just presented the certificate of return to Soludo at its headquarters in Awka, capital of the state.

The certificate signed by the Chairman of INEC, Prof.Mahmoud Yakubu was presented to Soludo by the commission’s Federal Commissioner on Voter Education, Mr. Festus Okoye.

Soludo, candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) was declared winner of the November 6 Anambra governorship election by INEC after a supplementary poll was held in Ihiala Local Government Area of the state.

The governorship election has been adjudged to be the most free, fair and credible poll in the history of Nigeria with APGA securing an overwhelmingly landslide victory. But what are the facts?

Besides vote buying which reportedly characterised the poll and the experience of low voter turnout as a result of the pre-election season, which witnessed a series of violence that marred campaign rallies of the various parties in parts of the state, INEC has come under some deserved flak for surprising glitches that were observed.

But first, in terms of security ahead of the governorship election, the state could accurately have been described as hermetically sealed to stave off both shadowy and overt crisis entrepreneurs. This scenario was considerably helped by the fact that the poll was an off-cycle one. Further, in terms of landmass, Anambra State covers 4,844 square kilometres – making it the smallest state in Nigeria, besides Lagos which boasts of 3,345 square kilometres.

More specifically underpin the extremely tight security measures put in place, it could be recalled that ahead of the November 6 poll, the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba ordered an unprecedented overhauling of the security landscape in the state. This move included deployment of selected, seasoned Strategic Commanders from the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police and above to the state for effective supervision of security personnel and operations in the election.

In the new pre-election security scenario, the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Joseph Egbunike, was deployed to Anambra State as the Coordinator of the security component for the elections.

Egbunike was shortly before the election, removed and replaced.

But before his removal, he was initially assisted by the DIG in-charge of Operations, Acting DIG Zaki Ahmed. Other strategic commanders deployed to Anambra State include five Assistant Inspectors General of Police (AIGs), 14 Commissioners of Police (CPs), 31 Deputy Commissioners of Police (DCPs) and 48 Assistant Commissioners of Police (ACPs). The Senior Officers are to coordinate human and other operational deployments in the three Senatorial Districts, 21 Local Government Areas and the 5720 polling units in Anambra State.

Several weeks before the poll proper, on Monday, October 4 2021, Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Faruk Yahaya, flagged off a new military operation codenamed Exercise Golden Dawn, in the country’s South-eastern region which, according to him, would curb rising cases of insecurity.

With these core security concerns adequately addressed, still issues arose around INEC’s logistics preparedness. Malfunctioning of the Biometric Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) became a big issue as it was experienced in many polling units across the 21 local government areas of the state. This was believed to have significantly made the entire election process slow.

According to the Vice-Chair of the Transition Monitoring Group, TMG, Miriam Menkiti, the poor functioning of the Bi-modal Voter Accreditation Machine (BVAM) and Card Readers of INEC were lamentable. Her words: “It is shocking that despite the consistent statement by INEC that the card readers were all set for the elections, we still witnessed a high rate of poor connection of the BVAM in various parts of the state.

“TMG appeals to INEC to live up to the task of providing smooth elections for Nigerians in the 2023 general election which will be cumbersome and overstretch the electoral empire.”

These provided some background to what happened as willy-nilly, INEC had to declare the Anambra governorship poll inconclusive, fixing a supplementary poll because it could hold election in Ihiala LGA.

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calabar and Chief Returning Officer for the election, Prof. Florence Obi, had noted that: “As you all know, we have collated results for 20 out of 21 local government areas. The outstanding result is for Ihiala Local Government Area where, for various reasons, INEC could not deploy yesterday. Consequently, based on constitutional considerations, provisions of the Electoral Act and the Revised Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Elections issued by the Commission, supplementary election is indicated for Ihiala Local Government Area.”

The “various reasons” adduced for the poll postponement was fleshed out by Ahmadu Umar who alleged that irregularities discovered in most communities in the council area. According to him, there were 148,407 registered voters in the LGA, yet there was no election in the council area on Saturday due to the activities of some politicians who tried to rig the election.

That postponement scaled up tension and caused open gunfire in Ihiala. This would have been needless if INEC had exploited fully the solid security on the ground and optimally employed the technology available to them. This would have reduced delays in other LGAs and ultimately obviated the postponement.

In all, INEC should certainly not be giving logistic challenges as an excuse in conducting November 6 poll in a state like Anambra that is about the smallest enclave in Nigeria. What would then transpire when it holds polls on multiple fronts – with 2023 in mind? The commission must of necessity address the challenges that affected the Anambra governorship election before the 2023 general election.