APC wants total cancellation of Anambra Governorship Election

The All Progressives Congress (APC) now wants  total cancellation of Saturday's governorship election in Anambra State.

It is alleging massive disenfranchisement of people across the state, caused by the blatant incompetent and/or deliberate sabotage by the electoral commission itself.

The party had boycotted the rescheduled Anambra governorship election in Idemili North Local Government Area, describing the exercise as 'a charade and mockery of democracy'.

The party's position was a modification on its earlier position that the election should be re-run in four local governments where it alleged that polling either did not hold or where it held at all was manipulated in favour of All progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate.

The Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in a statement in Lagos on Sunday, said the call for total cancellation superseded its early call for a rerun in four local government areas.

According to him, the party's stand is based on the report it received from its agents as well as from local and foreign observers during the poll.

APC's candidate, Dr. Chris Ngige, had earlier while addressing newsmen in Awka on Sunday said t he was considering calling for the cancellation of the entire election.

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had rescheduled the election in the Obosi following the late arrival of materials.

Mohammed in the statement  said that INEC, which was saddled with organising the election, inexplicably used a voters' register thatwas totally different from what it gave to political parties ahead of the election.

He said that curiously the new register did not contain the names of most of the registered voters in the state.

Worse still, APC said, delivery of materials to the stongholds of the APC candidate, Senator Chris Ngige, was either done very late or not at all, a development that further robbed over 300,000 of his supporters in three key local governments of Idemili North, Idemili South and Awka South of their franchise.

The party said, 'After consultations with our agents as well as with local and foreign observers, we have discovered that what we earlier complained about was a child's play, compared to the widespread disenfranchisement that was orchestrated by the same body given the responsibility of ensuring a free, fair and creditable election on Saturday.

'We discovered that INEC has set up a multi-layer arrangement to ensure that most voters in the state were disenfranchised, apparently acting out a script to manipulate the result of the election in favour of a certain candidate. Where voting materials were supplied, the commission provided wrong voters' register.

'Coming after the charade in Delta, this is a serious development that raises questions about the ability of INEC to conduct afree, fair and transparent elections anywhere in Nigeria. It is particularly serious because if people who registered to vote are not able to do so, and even the votes of those who managed to cast them do not count, then anarchy is looming.'

The party wants  a probe of INEC to determine why it has taken it upon itself to sabotage its own elections, even when people are determined to endure the orchestrated inconveniences and shun all acts of violence, as was witnessed in Anambra on Saturday when people waited patiently and peacefully, only to go home in total disappointment.

'This is a new low for INEC, and unless something is done urgently, the electoral commission may plunge Nigeria into a crisis from which it may not recover,' APC warned.

Candidates of two other major parties in the state's guber election, Labour Party candidate, Ifeanyi Ubah and that of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had equally expressed dissastisfaction with the election.

Ubah who appeared on a live television programme on Sunday did not only call for the cancellation of the election, he also asked for re-payment of their electoral expenses.

He believed that the election was tailored to favour the ruling party in the state, All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA).

People’s Democratic Party’s Tony Nwoye also lamented his exclusion from the polls as his name and that of his father and siblings were missing in the voter’s register.

All the three parties believed that only outright cancellation of the poll can make INEC’s integrity intact.