The Independent National Electoral
Commission in Nigeria has said that it is
investigating the several issues trailing
the Anambra governorship election,
blaming some voters for the omission of
their names in the voters register.
Speaking on Channels Television’s
breakfast programme, Sunrise Daily, the
spokesman for the commission, Mr.
Kayode Idowu, addressed several issues
which sprung up during the election that
has been touted as a test run for the
2015 general elections.
Despite efforts by the electoral umpire to
conduct a free and fair, widely accepted
election, there were many hiccups in the
process. Mr Idowu admitted that the fact
that a supplementary election would be
conducted was evidence that the election
was flawed.
He, however, condemned people making
‘sweeping generalisations’ concerning the
elections.
Mr Idowu, who is the the Press Secretary
to the commission’s chairman, Attahiru
Jega, said that INEC had made efforts to
conduct an election that would surpass
all other elections it had conducted in the
past but there were challenges in
logistics and the voters register.
Commenting on the issue of missing
names in the voters register, he said that
investigations by the Commission
revealed that in most cases people did
not go to confirm their details when the
Claims and Objections’ register was
displayed few days to the election date
on November 16.
“The law requires that people should go
to verify their status and names during
display and there were issues. They had
the opportunity to raise it and the
Commission will make adjustments.”
The register had also been given to the
political parties 30 days before the
elections.
“Three days before the election, that
same register with a slight adjustment
was given to them,” he said, adding that,
the Commission had also presented the
option for voters to confirm their status
by sending a text message to a phone
number.
He added that some of the voters whose
names were missing were actually not in
the biometric register, while some were
on the addendum register.
Although INEC Chairman had announced
that only the electronic voters register
would be used during the election, Mr
Idowu explained that the addendum
register (which is manual) was used
during the 2011 voters registration
exercise in order to accommodate those
who had issues with the biometric
machines.
He gave assurance that the issue with
the voters register would not repeat itself
in 2015 because the commission would
issue a permanent voters card.
“But for people to get it, their data must
have been in the register,” he explained.