Vunderkind
Social Member
The Anambra elections held over the weekend can be described with a lot of words, but ‘successful’, ‘impressive’ and ‘exemplary’ are not some of them. As Senator Chris Ngige, one of the contesting governorship candidates put it, the election was a 'charade'.
A combination of voting materials being conspicuously missing at crucial voting centers, the PDP candidate finding his name missing in the register and a postponement of the elections to Sunday have prompted several concerned parties to call for a more introspective look into the conduction of the elections.
One of such parties is the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties, CNPP, which has, without mincing words, called for the immediate resignation of the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega.
Their argument is that, if the INEC chairman could not conduct a (relatively) simple election like the Anambra election, what is the assurance that he can take on the (more important) 2015 general elections? In their own words, “we are making this call on the fact that the eminent Professor Jega from available records bungled the single Anambra State gubernatorial election; and this being the case, what are the guarantee that he will not bungle the 2015 general elections?’
CNPP, apparently, is not even totally angry that Jega managed to bungle the ‘single’ election. The CNPP is most unimpressed that in spite of the obvious flaws in the commission, Jega could still defend the failure of the INEC in a public interview on Sunday.
Now, for a quick examination of the facts. The Returning Officer, Professor James Okuoke said quite clearly that there were certain irregularities in the collation of results, which resulted in the cancellation of 113,113 votes. Jega, on the other hand, kept playing a broken record, reiterating over and over again that only 65 polling units in the Obosi Electoral Ward needed to re-vote, even though by his own admission, an INEC officer (whom he claims has been arrested) had screwed up the elections at Idemili North (which has 306 polling units and a total of about 174,000 registered voters).
Jega said he cannot cancel the whole election because of the mishap of one Electoral Officer.
CNPP goes on to ask, “The first valid question to our eminent professor is, is the 113,113 cancelled votes from only Idemili North, where no election took place and where a rescheduled election was supposedly conducted at Obosi and later extended to Abatete and Nkpor Ward 2, without official notification?”
According to some serious CNPP math, about 506,000 votes need to be cancelled. How does this work out? First, there is the irregularity of 113, 113 votes as reported by the Returning Officer. Add to that the 140,000 votes in Idemili North (where, as we discovered, voting didn’t take place) and an extra 200,000 or so manipulated votes which, according to CNPP, was spread across Anambra West and East, Awka South and North, Ihiala as well as several other polling units, as reported by eyewitnesses and observers at the various polling units.
Then, there is the nagging question: was it with a clear conscience that the commission fixed an election on a Sunday in a largely Christian community?
Sum this up, and we have the pressing question: judging by Jega’s performance in conducting this election, do we really want him in charge of the 2015 general elections?
A combination of voting materials being conspicuously missing at crucial voting centers, the PDP candidate finding his name missing in the register and a postponement of the elections to Sunday have prompted several concerned parties to call for a more introspective look into the conduction of the elections.
One of such parties is the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties, CNPP, which has, without mincing words, called for the immediate resignation of the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega.
Their argument is that, if the INEC chairman could not conduct a (relatively) simple election like the Anambra election, what is the assurance that he can take on the (more important) 2015 general elections? In their own words, “we are making this call on the fact that the eminent Professor Jega from available records bungled the single Anambra State gubernatorial election; and this being the case, what are the guarantee that he will not bungle the 2015 general elections?’
CNPP, apparently, is not even totally angry that Jega managed to bungle the ‘single’ election. The CNPP is most unimpressed that in spite of the obvious flaws in the commission, Jega could still defend the failure of the INEC in a public interview on Sunday.
Now, for a quick examination of the facts. The Returning Officer, Professor James Okuoke said quite clearly that there were certain irregularities in the collation of results, which resulted in the cancellation of 113,113 votes. Jega, on the other hand, kept playing a broken record, reiterating over and over again that only 65 polling units in the Obosi Electoral Ward needed to re-vote, even though by his own admission, an INEC officer (whom he claims has been arrested) had screwed up the elections at Idemili North (which has 306 polling units and a total of about 174,000 registered voters).
Jega said he cannot cancel the whole election because of the mishap of one Electoral Officer.
CNPP goes on to ask, “The first valid question to our eminent professor is, is the 113,113 cancelled votes from only Idemili North, where no election took place and where a rescheduled election was supposedly conducted at Obosi and later extended to Abatete and Nkpor Ward 2, without official notification?”
According to some serious CNPP math, about 506,000 votes need to be cancelled. How does this work out? First, there is the irregularity of 113, 113 votes as reported by the Returning Officer. Add to that the 140,000 votes in Idemili North (where, as we discovered, voting didn’t take place) and an extra 200,000 or so manipulated votes which, according to CNPP, was spread across Anambra West and East, Awka South and North, Ihiala as well as several other polling units, as reported by eyewitnesses and observers at the various polling units.
Then, there is the nagging question: was it with a clear conscience that the commission fixed an election on a Sunday in a largely Christian community?
Sum this up, and we have the pressing question: judging by Jega’s performance in conducting this election, do we really want him in charge of the 2015 general elections?
