[b]AS the nation grapples with yet another shoddy election, this time the Anambra State governorship poll of last Saturday, it is incumbent upon the Independent National Electoral Commission to do the right thing: summon the courage to cancel the flawed election. It did so two years ago when it called off the National Assembly poll of April 2, 2011 because of logistic problems, which led to the late arrival of materials. Beyond declaring the result inconclusive, INEC has the burden to limit the damage it has caused by owning up to its gross incompetence. Decidedly, the election failed the basic test of credibility, which critically determines the acceptability of an electoral contest.

Last Saturday, the problem of logistics reared its ugly head again, though an incompetent INEC had more than two years to prepare for the poll. Inexplicably, thousands of eligible voters, who had earlier confirmed their names on the voter register, discovered that their names had been wrongly omitted on voting day. How terribly backward can our system be?

What is required of INEC now is to set the parameters for a new poll that will be credible, transparent and acceptable, not only to the Anambra people, but to all Nigerians. Apart from the illegal disenfranchisement of voters, especially in 65 wards in the Idemili North Local Government Area where INEC called for a rerun poll the following day, other massive irregularities condemned the exercise; and as a result many people could not perform their civic duties. One of them is Tony Nwoye, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party; also missing were the names of his father and uncle. This is absurd! Our elections, despite the hope raised by Jega in 2011, are returning to the dark days of Maurice Iwu’s INEC of 2003 and 2007.

There were allegations of vote-buying, intimidation of party agents, manipulation and other forms of rigging. All this happened in spite of the massive deployment of 28,000 police personnel led by a Deputy Inspector-General of Police, and other security agencies such as the Army and the State Security Service. Adding to the popular outrage is the fact that INEC could not get it right despite its team being personally led by its Chairman, Attahiru Jega, assisted by 21 commissioners and 15 Resident Electoral Commissioners for the poll.

Although Jega had boasted to Nigerians that he would deliver a flawless poll that “would be the best election so far in the country,” he did the exact opposite. This blunder is ominous. “The poor deployment of logistics, materials and incompetence of many polling officials contributed to the problems that affected the poll,” said the Nigeria Civil Society Election Situation Room, one of the observer groups that condemned the conduct of the poll.

As for 2015, grave danger is ahead. If INEC could so thoroughly bungle an election in just one state and for just one seat, there is no guarantee that it can conduct general elections creditably in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. How come INEC is always having logistic problems in elections, as it happened in the Ondo and Edo governorship elections held differently in the recent past? Nigerians should stand up and demand that the right thing be done. Although the problem of election rigging in Nigeria is systemic and goes beyond the electoral body, the umpire itself has failed in its most basic assignment of conducting transparent polls.

This is not the time to abandon the women who found their voice to protest the rerun poll on Sunday. Every Anambra citizen – and indeed every Nigerian – should feel outraged about the shambolic poll Jega and Co. superintended in Anambra State. The Anambra electoral debacle has wide implications for the whole country. A major problem the nation has to confront frontally is the criminal desperation of our politicians who deploy every trick to win elections. They recruit law enforcement agents, election officials and thugs to subvert the process. They are not above using violence to perpetrate electoral fraud.

But such a system cannot deliver accountable leaders and citizens should demand a change in the electoral system. The present one cannot guarantee competence in public office. As we have advocated several times in the past, a return to true federalism, in which the federating units are not subservient to the central government in terms of revenue sharing and economic development, will allow the best to emerge through the electoral process. The charade that INEC called an election in Anambra must not stand; a fresh poll that is credible has to be organised and Nigerians should accept nothing less.

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Contact: editor@punchng.com
[/b]

Ngene-Ukwenu:
That if If JEGA still has any integrity!

Keneking: Vanguard had a different view, especially in the last three paragraphs, suggesting that the leading candidate should be inaugurated and the results should be upheld. They did not call for a total cancellation.

Lets wait for Guardian newspaper opinion as well

Kingsley1000: The election worth total cancellation.let's be sincere...imagine a situation where over 1.8million people registered,only 400,000 voted and you say it was credible

Kingsley1000: The election worth total cancellation.let's be sincere...imagine a situation where over 1.8million people registered,only 400,000 voted and you say it was credible

gbanikiti: that's the most annoying part of the whole mess! Out of 1.8 million registered voters, only about 480,000 voted and some buffons are trying to tell me it was credible. Credible my left a$$!!

Ngene-Ukwenu:
Why are they afraid of rerun Could it be that they actually rigged

AtlanticBreeze: ^
How irrational nonentites leave the major rigging cases to focus on initial registered and the accredited voters tells us their foolishness. How about voters whose name where missing in the register, how about delaying voting in your opponents stronghold only to postpone it to a Sunday, how about ballot papers without result sheets, how about monetary inducement of voters, how about massive thumbprinting by police etc etc. do they also happen in the US? As much as Punch is not a credible media source, they are objective and way above mark in this case.

AKUNWATA1: EXACTLY WHAT I EXPECTED FROM OFENMANU 'S. PAPER

DerideGull:


Those are human errors. Nobody is perfect including your deluded self. Yes, human blunders happen in USA however no attention is paid to moronic loudmouths and sore losers such as you.

There was case in Baltimore were local electioneering staff forged voter’s names and modified voter’s lists. Nobody knows how long she has been on such malpractice. When she was finally caught, she was persecuted and sent to serve time. There was no fool calling for the election to be cancelled.

DerideGull:


Those are human errors. Nobody is perfect including your deluded self. Yes, human blunders happen in USA however no attention is paid to moronic loudmouths and sore losers such as you.

There was case in Baltimore were local electioneering staff forged voter’s names and modified voter’s lists. Nobody knows how long she has been on such malpractice. When she was finally caught, she was persecuted and sent to serve time. There was no fool calling for the election to be cancelled.

DerideGull:

Your foolery is beyond imbecilic buffoonery. Even in the lands of technological know-how, there has never being a time when number of registered voters equaled the number of vote counted. What is the cause of this petty idiocy among Nigerians?

berem: what's with the insults? Is that how you talk to women in your family? What's your problem? Did anyone annoy you or what? Abeg just respect your age Dede! Kpa cha anya gi!!

DerideGull:



I am trying very hard ikpa chara anyam but certain women on this forum kept goofing off.
Any woman in my family who has the following nonsense, “that’s the most annoying part of the whole mess! Out of 1.8 million registered voters, only about 480,000 voted and some buffons are trying to tell me it was credible. Credible my left a$$!!” to say publicly should be scolded equally.

AtlanticBreeze:
so we should excuse human errors because it favors and when did America become a benchmark for assessing our elections by the way? When you talk sore losers, shouldn't the loss come clean and clear or reasonably so? "When she was finally caught" has anybody been declared winner of the election already or was the election declared inconclusive? You see, the problem is some of you drop your thinking caps before logging onto the internet.

berem: I wonder why my comment is hurting you so much. Biko buru nsogbu gi puo m n'uzo. Yeye!!

DerideGull:


It hurts me because I had expected more intelligent prose than you otherwise presented, olodo.

ballabriggs:

Dede anuohia. No wonder you are frustrated because you cannot get a wife. Any woman that marries a mad dog like you is in trouble. Best thing you will do for yourself is to go to Ann Summers and buy one of those sex t0ys to help your frustration else you are doomed. Animal

ballabriggs:

Dede anuohia. No wonder you are frustrated because you cannot get a wife. Any woman that marries a mad dog like you is in trouble. Best thing you will do for yourself is to go to Ann Summers and buy one of those sex t0ys to help your frustration else you are doomed. Animal

Ngene-Ukwenu:
Why are they afraid of rerun Could it be that they actually rigged