Controversial Anambra governorship poll

AS the nation grapples with yet another shoddy election, this time the Anambra State governorship poll of last Saturday, it is incumbent upon the Independent National Electoral Commission to do the right thing: summon the courage to cancel the flawed election. It did so two years ago when it called off the National Assembly poll of April 2, 2011 because of logistic problems, which led to the late arrival of materials. Beyond declaring the result inconclusive, INEC has the burden to limit the damage it has caused by owning up to its gross incompetence. Decidedly, the election failed the basic test of credibility, which critically determines the acceptability of an electoral contest.

Last Saturday, the problem of logistics reared its ugly head again, though an incompetent INEC had more than two years to prepare for the poll. Inexplicably, thousands of eligible voters, who had earlier confirmed their names on the voter register, discovered that their names had been wrongly omitted on voting day. How terribly backward can our system be?

What is required of INEC now is to set the parameters for a new poll that will be credible, transparent and acceptable, not only to the Anambra people, but to all Nigerians. Apart from the illegal disenfranchisement of voters, especially in 65 wards in the Idemili North Local Government Area where INEC called for a rerun poll the following day, other massive irregularities condemned the exercise; and as a result many people could not perform their civic duties. One of them is Tony Nwoye, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party; also missing were the names of his father and uncle. This is absurd! Our elections, despite the hope raised by Jega in 2011, are returning to the dark days of Maurice Iwu’s INEC of 2003 and 2007.

There were allegations of vote-buying, intimidation of party agents, manipulation and other forms of rigging. All this happened in spite of the massive deployment of 28,000 police personnel led by a Deputy Inspector-General of Police, and other security agencies such as the Army and the State Security Service. Adding to the popular outrage is the fact that INEC could not get it right despite its team being personally led by its Chairman, Attahiru Jega, assisted by 21 commissioners and 15 Resident Electoral Commissioners for the poll.

Although Jega had boasted to Nigerians that he would deliver a flawless poll that “would be the best election so far in the country,” he did the exact opposite. This blunder is ominous. “The poor deployment of logistics, materials and incompetence of many polling officials contributed to the problems that affected the poll,” said the Nigeria Civil Society Election Situation Room, one of the observer groups that condemned the conduct of the poll.

As for 2015, grave danger is ahead. If INEC could so thoroughly bungle an election in just one state and for just one seat, there is no guarantee that it can conduct general elections creditably in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. How come INEC is always having logistic problems in elections, as it happened in the Ondo and Edo governorship elections held differently in the recent past? Nigerians should stand up and demand that the right thing be done. Although the problem of election rigging in Nigeria is systemic and goes beyond the electoral body, the umpire itself has failed in its most basic assignment of conducting transparent polls.

This is not the time to abandon the women who found their voice to protest the rerun poll on Sunday. Every Anambra citizen – and indeed every Nigerian – should feel outraged about the shambolic poll Jega and Co. superintended in Anambra State. The Anambra electoral debacle has wide implications for the whole country. A major problem the nation has to confront frontally is the criminal desperation of our politicians who deploy every trick to win elections. They recruit law enforcement agents, election officials and thugs to subvert the process. They are not above using violence to perpetrate electoral fraud.

But such a system cannot deliver accountable leaders and citizens should demand a change in the electoral system. The present one cannot guarantee competence in public office. As we have advocated several times in the past, a return to true federalism, in which the federating units are not subservient to the central government in terms of revenue sharing and economic development, will allow the best to emerge through the electoral process. The charade that INEC called an election in Anambra must not stand; a fresh poll that is credible has to be organised and Nigerians should accept nothing less.