The Anambra State governorship election that was started Saturday Nov. 6 was concluded Wednesday morning with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announcing former Central Bank governor and candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, winner. INEC had declared the election inconclusive on Sunday after voting did not take place in Ihiala council and it announced a supplementary vote there Tuesday. Taking a comfortable lead Saturday, winning 18 of 20 councils declared, Soludo eventually won with 103,946 votes while the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Valentine Ozigbo, got 51,322 votes. The third major party, APC, received 43,285 votes.
Presenting the final result at 1:52 am Wednesday at the collation centre, Awka, INEC’s Returning Officer and Vice Chancellor of University of Calabar, Prof Florence Obi, declared Soludo winner of the election after winning Ihiala to take his tally to 19 councils out of 21, while the PDP and Youths Progressives Party (YPP) both have one local government area each. APC failed to take any.
The winner, Soludo, meanwhile described his victory as “a reflection of the people’s will.” In an acceptance speech, he said, “Let me say with utmost humility and gratitude to God, I accept the results of the 2021 Anambra governorship election as declared by INEC. And this reflects the supreme will of the Almighty God and an overwhelming sacred mandate of the people. This is a divine journey whose time has come… The election itself tested the integrity of our federal institutions. Many times there were tensions, especially as one party boasted that it must take or ‘conquer’ but the judiciary stood for the integrity of the judiciary.”
The governor-elect promised to deliver the dividends of democracy to the people of the state while extending an olive branch to the other contenders in the race. He is expected to be sworn into office next March when the two-term tenure of Willie Obiano, who is also of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, runs out.
While we commend the INEC for doing the near impossible by conducting the election under a very tense atmosphere, we dare say that there are too many minuses to ignore. One, a single state election took the INEC all of 4 days to conclude. What if it were a national election? Two, the much touted bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) failed, meaning many people were unable to vote at the end of polling on Saturday. That forced a continuation the next day. Even so, still no voting took place in Ihiala council with a potential voter strength of 148,407. It was at that point that the INEC declared the entire result “inconclusive” and shifted the Ihiala vote to Tuesday which started two hours late.
Besides, election monitors reported massive vote buying involving all the 18 political parties that fielded candidates in the election. There were pockets of violence, apparently instigated by the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) which had earlier declared there would be no election at all. The violence happened in spite of the full complement of 34,587 security personnel deployed from Abuja to secure the poll.
We do recognize that the security issue was out of INEC’s hand but not so the cause of many people’s failure to vote on Saturday and Sunday. The electoral umpire must take responsibility for the failure of technology in this election. This and the consequent inconclusiveness of the outcome before the Ihiala vote will surely form the main planks of complaints of losers in the election. Going forward, INEC must take steps to quickly rectify the serious hitches thrown up by the Anambra poll ahead of national elections in 2023.
