Anambra 2021: Incredible Surprises That May Spring Up During Election
The stage is set and the time ticks as Nigerians, especially Anambra residents eagerly wait to see how happeneings in the much-talked about Anambra gubernatorial election will either favour or disappoint expections.
Fears about insecurity stemming from recent activities of members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in the southeast and age-long skepticism over the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)'s ability to conduct fair and credible polls have coloured the perceptions of some persons for the Anambra poll.
Source: UGC
However, a cosideration of some key facts strengthens the feeling that the election might just go off with a lot of occurences that will confound some political scientists in Nigeria who had given predictive analses on it.
1. Security
At the moment, there is heavy presence of armed security agents in all the local government areas of the state to subdue any attempt at creating mayhem on unrest throughout the poll.
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Added to this, IPOB has agreed to hands off from the election by calling off the sit-at-home order given to residents.
The proscribed southeast group has also advised voters in the state to exercise their constitutional right to vote for preferred candidates.
This is enough for one to believe that quite contrary to previous notions, the election will be majorly peaceful.
2. INEC
For the INEC, the conduct of the Saturday, November 6, poll in Anambra will serve as a test experiment ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Already, the electoral umpire has deployed materials for the elections including the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) which will aid much transparency during voting and collation of results.
The innovation has by INEC has been commended by Yiaga Africa which noted that the BVAS will take care of some of the shortfalls of the Smart Card Reader.
The election monitoring organisation in a recent statement said:
"The BVAS as presented will address this issue because it is designed as a bimodal biometric authentication device integrating both fingerprint and facial technology.
"Accordingly, on Election Day, the device will be used to authenticate voters either through fingerprint or facial recognition during accreditation. Where fingerprint authentication fails, facial authentication will be done. Where both fingerprint and facial authentication fails, the voter will not be allowed to vote.”
Yiaga expressed certainty that the machine will "...is robust and sufficient to further guarantee the credibility of the voter accreditation and result management process and by extension promote transparent elections."
It added:
“This will significantly reduce or possibly eliminate incidents of multiple voting, PVC buying and selling and PVC theft."
3. Political parties
The present political terrain in Anambra is one that leave the stage open for even 'minor' parties to emerge victorious.
The ruling party, All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), which just suffered a major defection from the deputy governor, Nkem Okeke, to the All Progress Congress (APC) is curently strongly to keep its own together.
Meanwhile, the candidacy of APC's Senator Andy Uba is still being contested at the Federal High Court in Abuja by a cheftain of the party, Chief George Moghalu.
These spell bad omen for both APGA and APC, leaving parties like the Peoples Democratic Party and the Young Progressives Party with much optimism for the election.
Thus, there are chances, though not necessarily equal, for some platforms to take the centre stage and possibly become the new ruling party in Anambra for the next four years.
Anxiety ahead of Anambra election as voters storm INEC office to pick up PVCs, photos emerge
Meanwhile, ahead of the Anambra state governorship election, prospective voters in a last minute rushed to get their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) converged at the office of INEC.
Legit.ng gathered that residents on Wednesday, November 3, lined at the commission's office in Dunukofia local government area of the the state to pick up their PVCs.
This was made known by the national electoral commission via a post shared on its official Facebook page.
Source: Legit.ng
