Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has assured that the November 6 governorship election in Anambra State would hold against fears that it might not be realistic going by the Sit-at-Home order by the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.
INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu gave the assurance during a closed doors meeting with the joint Committees on INEC (of the Senate) and Electoral Matters (of the House of Representatives) held at the National Assembly complex.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on INEC, Senator Kabiru Gaya (APC Kano South), who spoke with journalists after the meeting, stated that results of the election might be transferred electronically by the electoral umpire if possible.
“The INEC has assured us that it will go ahead with the Anambra election and declare the winner. We expect the people of the state to cooperate fully with the electoral body by being law abiding.
“The only way to achieve free and fair, credible election in Anambra is for everybody to eschew violence.
“It is left for INEC to decide whether it will transfer the election results inst Anambra or not. They have done that in the previous elections in Edo and Ondo States.
“Even before the INEC started transferring elections results from polling units, Nigerians have been monitoring results of elections the moments they are being announced at polling stations and by 4pm, even before the final results are announced many Nigerians would have seen them on the internet. Nigerians are fully involved in elections,” Senator Gaya explained.
Also speaking, the INEC chairman disclosed that the commission has recovered from the series of attacks on its facilities, expressing happiness that all the non-sensitive materials have been deployed to all the local government areas of the state.
Yakubu went on: “We have trained the requisite number of adhoc staff for the election and we have also mobilized members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers for efficient distribution of materials on election day. As far as INEC is concerned, we are good to go on November 6, 2021.”
On the distribution of permanent voter cards in Anambra, he said: “We have a little over 81,000 valid registrants. After the suspension of the CVR in Anambra State, that includes a little over 5,000 that applied for replacement of cards and intra-state and inter-state transfers.
“As we speak, we are batching the cards. They will leave first thing tomorrow morning (Thursday) for Awka and all the new registrants will get their cards before the elections.
“This time around with the help of technology, we were able to harvest the telephone numbers and email addresses of the registrants. So, we will contact each and every one of them and tell them where to pick their cards. But the cards will be delivered to Awka tomorrow (Thursday).”
He added that INEC will make announcement in the media to ensure that those without telephones and emails to collect their cards at the ward level.
