Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
USAfrica: Polling, Battle over next Anambra Governor continue with collation of votes
The battle over who becomes the next Governor of Anambra State of Nigeria continues this Sunday morning as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will allow additional time for some of those who could not vote yesterday Saturday, November 6.
The governorship election, according to some citizens of the Anambra State and observers USAfrica correspondents spoke to, mostly assessed the polling of yesterday as “relatively peaceful.”
Regardless, it was affected negatively by technical problems such as the malfunction of the new Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).
USAfrica noted there were issues regarding very late arrivals of election materials and some INEC agents. There were cases of the snatching of ballot boxes in a few locations. The heavy military and police presence, some of the voters and election monitors said, contributed to substantial voter apathy.
INEC’s Resident Electoral Officer for Anambra state, Nwachukwu Orji, stated on Saturday that they were taking steps make sure that all the votes are recorded and counted:
“To be sure, (things) may not have been resolved perfectly everywhere, but the reports we got from our field officers and independent observers convince us that most voters were able to vote with the BVAS, following the extension of voting period to 4.00pm and our regulation that any voter on the queue at that time must be allowed to vote.”
“As I said in my earlier briefing, any Polling Unit where there was a consistent malfunction of the BVAS, and therefore the voters in the Unit were unable to vote, the election will be continued tomorrow. We are yet to receive reports of any location where the sustained malfunction of the BVAS led to no election at all. Still, we shall continue to receive reports through our usual channels, particularly from the collation of the Form EC40G, which is the official document for recording Polling Units where elections did not hold or were cancelled”
“I am glad to announce that the State Collation will commence tomorrow at the State Collation Centre here in our State Office. I invite all those who are entitled to be present – Collation Officers, accredited Polling Agents, observers and the media – to attend the State Collation, which will open at 10am tomorrow (as in Sunday) morning.” It will hold in the state capital, Awka. Evidently, soon, Anambra will know its next Governor….
