The All Progressives Congress has demanded a total cancellation of Saturday’s governorship election in Anambra State based on what it called the massive disenfranchisement of people across the state, caused by the blatant incompetent and/or deliberate sabotage by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the call for total cancellation supersedes its early call for a rerun in four local government areas and is based on the report it received from its agents as well as from local and foreign observers during the poll.
It said that INEC, which was saddled with organising the election, inexplicably used a voters’ register that is totally different from what it gave to political parties ahead of the election, with the result that the new register did not contain the names of most of the registered voters in the state.
Worse still, the APC said, delivery of materials to the strongholds of the APC candidate, Senator Chris Ngige, was either done very late or not at all, a development that further robbed over 300,000 of his supporters in three key local governments of Idemili North, Idemili South and Awka South of their franchise.
The statement said: “After consultations with our agents as well as with local and foreign observers, we have discovered that what we earlier complained about was a child’s play, compared to the widespread disenfranchisement that was orchestrated by the same body given the responsibility of ensuring a free, fair and creditable election on Saturday.
“We discovered that INEC has set up a multi-layer arrangement to ensure that most voters in the state were disenfranchised, apparently acting out a script to manipulate the result of the election in favour of a certain candidate. Where voting materials were supplied, the commission provided wrong voters’ register.
“Coming after the charade in Delta, this is a serious development that raises questions about the ability of INEC to conduct a free, fair and transparent elections anywhere in Nigeria. It is particularly serious because if people who registered to vote are not able to do so, and even the votes of those who managed to cast them do not count, then anarchy is looming.”
The APC called for a probe of INEC to determine why it has taken it upon itself to sabotage its own elections, even when people were determined to endure the orchestrated inconveniences and shun all acts of violence, as was witnessed in Anambra State on Saturday when people waited patiently and peacefully, only to go home in total disappointment.
“This is a new low for INEC, and unless something is done urgently, the electoral commission may plunge Nigeria into a crisis from which it may not recover,” the APC warned.
The party on Sunday boycotted the rescheduled Anambra State governorship election in Idemili North Local Government Area, describing the exercise as “a charade and mockery of democracy”.
INEC rescheduled the election in Obosi following the late arrival of materials.
Ngige said the late arrival of the materials was not only witnessed in Obosi but also in Awka South, Ogbaru, Njikoka and Idemili South local government areas, describing the areas as his stronghold.
He said: “For example, in Idemili North, none of the polling units had result sheets and when they did in some areas, they arrived late when voters had left their booths.
“In Idemili South, especially my town in Alor, the voters’ register had the names of some eligible voters missing.
“It was a systematic rigging to remove the names of those favourable to me.
“There were forceful locking out of agents of our party in Onitsha North, Awka South, Nnewi South, Ogbaru, Anaocha and parts of Orumba.
“There were multiplicity of security officials and our party observers, including Nasir el-Rufai; National Woman Leader, Mrs. Sharon Ikeazo; and other ex-officio members, who came to monitor the election, were confined to a control room.”
The governorship candidate said he had filed a petition to the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, to complain that the election was compromised.
He said: “I weep for Nigeria because this is a country of great hopes but this generation has decided not to bequeath any good to the coming generations.
“We will end up leading them to human socio-economic quagmire.
“We are not going to participate in the charade that is going on in Obosi electoral division.
“When we made our request calling for an election in all the 306 polling units in Idemili against Obosi alone, we also said we were all Christians of different denominations in the state.
“Today is our day of worship.
“The Churches start from 6am and conclude at about 3pm.
“Therefore, conducting an election on a Sunday is an affront to our religious belief and we don’t want our supporters to think we don’t honour God on a day of worship.”
According to Ngige, the exercise gives the notion that INEC has taken one step forward from the 2011 general polls and three steps backward in the Anambra State election.
Fielding questions from newsmen, Ngige added that by the provisions of the Electoral Act 2011, the APC had the right to go to court to challenge the poll.
“With what has transpired and the degree of fraud, especially the question of result sheets not being sent with other election materials, we make further demands for the cancellation of the exercise,” he noted.
However, the Transition Monitoring Group said on Sunday that it would not subscribe to total cancellation of the Anambra State Governorship Election.
The TMG is one of the observer groups that monitored the election held on Saturday across the state.
The TMG Chairman, Malam Zikirulahi Ibrahim, was reacting to the problem in Idemili North, where the election did not hold on Saturday and was rescheduled for Sunday.
In a telephone Interview, Ibrahim said that in spite of the problem, INEC performed well in some other areas where elections held.
He said: “From our observation, we know the commission tried, but we also know areas where elections need to be repeated.
“We, however, believe that INEC could have done better by holding the re-scheduled election on a working day instead of a Sunday, considering the religious belief of the people of the area.
“Our concern is that anything worth doing is worth doing well.”
Ibrahim advised INEC to let the entire world see that the issues arising from the Anambra State poll were appropriately addressed.
Commenting on the problem in Idemili North, INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, in a television interview in Abuja on Sunday, said that the INEC Official in charge of Idemili North “messed up” the commission’s arrangement for the election in the area.
Jega said that the incident did not warrant a total cancellation of the election.
He, however, said that the matter had been handed over to the police for investigation.
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