INEC Officials Shun Offices In Anambra Over Attacks, Abandon Ongoing Voters’ Registration

According to a report by SaharaReporters, the residents of Anambra State have lamented how they waited in vain to be registered for the ongoing Continuous Voters Registration exercise at the office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Ogidi, Idemili North Local Government Area of the state.

One of the voters in a video seen by SaharaReporters decried the INEC officials’ repeated absence from the office despite scheduling time with them.

According to the source who did not mention his name in the video, INEC officials asked them to come to the office for the registration at 11:30am on Tuesday, but the crowd waited for the whole day without seeing any of the officials to attend to them as the office remained locked until they left in the evening.

As early as 7:30am on Wednesday, the voters went back to the office but as of 9:15am, no INEC official was around while the office remained locked.   

The source, who said he was making the video to get to the appropriate authorities for explanation on why they were not being attended to, said, “This is INEC office in Idemili North Local Government. Yesterday, I was here with my wife to register for the voters’ card. Our scheduled appointment was by 11:30 in the morning but on arriving here yesterday, people were so many, more than the number you are seeing now. We waited all day but the officials didn’t come to work.

“Today I repeated and up till now, the time is 9:15am; they have not come to work. We don’t know their plan, whether this is a deliberate action not to get the South-East registered and at the end of the day, they will post an online figure that we have the lowest number of registered voters but the place here is under lock and key.

“I want to send out this video because we want to know if they have a deliberate plan to make sure that we don’t register.

“Knowing that we want to change this country, they asked us to get our PVC, and now we are about to get our PVC but they don’t want to give us the PVC.

“We want to know why this particular INEC office in Ogidi in Idemili North Local Government is not working.

“People left their work, offices, jobs to come and register and make sure that we do the right thing but we are now, nobody is answering us. My fellow Nigerians, see if this is good or not. People here are not less than 20 and some that came around 7:30a.m have left. I saw one man when I was coming. He said he can’t leave his job and come here and nothing would be done.”

The INEC officially ended its 11-month voters’ registration exercise on May 30 but announced that the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise will end on 30th of this month.

According to the election umpire as at May 30, a total of 10,235,569 people across the country applied both in-person and online for the voters’ card but only 6,544,245 voters have been successfully registered, while 29.4 million voters still remained unattended to.

Out of the total registered voters, Anambra State accounts for 158,770 registered voters.

However, it could be recalled that there have been a series of attacks on government-owned facilities in the state including INEC office by gunmen.

Before the November 6, 2021 governorship election in the state, gunmen attacked and set ablaze INEC headquarters in Awka, the state capital, and engaged men and officers of the Nigerian Police Force on gun duel, during which, four of the arsonists were reportedly killed.

Also, there has been fear across Anambra State and the entire South-East following the recent increasing incidents of attacks, kidnappings and killings by gunmen. The fear has also been heightened by continued threat by one of the frontline war mongers, Simon Ekpa, that there would be no elections in the South-East in 2023. 

Ekpa, who is based in Finland, in one of his broadcasts on Wednesday reiterated that there would be no election in “Biafraland.”

“We hereby declare no election, no 2023 general election in Biafra land. This no election in Biafra land has been activated. We are going to make it a task that must be done by every Biafran. All measures will be put in place to make sure that adequate civil disobedience is implemented to stop the election in all Biafraland.”

Ekpa added that “If you want to vote in 2023 as a Nig but you are from Biafraland, relocate to Abuja & cast your vote there, that’s where the president office is located. Biafrans can never allow fraudulent elections unless referendum. When we sit at home in the east, they say President is at ABJ.

“Do not listen to any criminal from those nzama that we expelled from the movement when they say nobody will listen to you about Biafra Independence except they are involved. They are only trying to be relevant. I know the day Biafra will come. Stay resolute,follow instructions.”