Insecurity: INEC Ad-hoc Staff Reject Posting, Deployment To Polling Units In Anambra – IPAC
With just one week to the Governorship Election in Anambra State, Dr. Leonard Nzenwa, Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) has raised serious doubt about the turnout of voters at polls despite the best efforts of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Speaking at the Special consultative meeting of the political parties summoned by the electoral umpire, Nzenwa said the people of Anambra are scared stiff to contemplate voting on November 6 owing to the activities of non- state actors in the state.
Nzenwa urged INEC to address unconfirmed reports that INEC adhoc staff are massively rejecting deployment to polling units and even Anambra State owing to the security situation in the state.
He said the worrisome security concerns has also soared the cost of running the election around the billionaire Governorship candidates and the Commission itself, saying that it was for these vicissitudes that informed the call by some IPAC members for the suspension of the poll to allow time for sanity to prevail.
Given the circumstance, Nzenwa who is also the Chairman of African Action Congress (AAC) expressed concern whether the election in Anambra can be adjudged to meet best global practices.
“The 2021 Anambra Gubernatorial Polls has not only been adjudged as the most expensive by credible pollsters with returnee of billionaires in hard currency struggling it out. This equally was validated by the Commission few days ago as it attested that it has cost it huge financial and material investment.
“On the flip side, the journey to this election has been strewn with pallets of uncertainties, not that the Commission had not prepared enough for it nor the political parties ill-equipped to participate but that actions and inaction of Non-State Actors seem to be throwing spanners in the works as wonton killings and destruction of property have continued unabated.
“It is this unfolding happenings that led to suggestion by some of us that the Anambra Polls be postponed to allow for some level of sanity to return before the polls is conducted. But some dissented.
“Truth, is that, the people in Anambra are scared stiff and have been cowed to stay indoors for the greater part of the days in the last few months. You see this on their faces, you sense this in the air they breath, you behold fear-stricken population fighting to fend for themselves in the wave of brutal and conscienceless attack on their lives and property.
“For a proper, well-credentialed poll with compliments of acceptable electoral best practices to be held in an environment as this is most unlikely, electoral polls literature across the globe testify to this. We encouraged the Commission to put their best leg forward in this regard”.
He said what is happening in Anambra in the run-up to the election will cause very high voter apathy that may raise questions thereafter.
“With all that is taking place there, with the huge money playing its role as it is still doing , with the State playing her role as they are doing, and currently still figuring out how possible they can creatively tame the audacity of the so called ‘rascal aggressors’, but those we do fear might not play their role are the people, the people that are going to vote.
"It follows, therefore, that the money may be there, the State may have its way, but to draw the people out to vote enmasee might not be an easy task.
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