Anambra election won’t record violence — State REC 8 hours ago In this interview with EMMANUEL OBE, the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Anambra State, Prof. Chukwuemeka Onukaogu, speaks on preparations for the November 16 governorship election in the state How prepared are you for the November 16 governorship election in Anambra State? We are adequately preparing for the election. For instance, we successfully trained those who helped to prepare the voter register that was concluded about a month ago. Without a good register, elections cannot be successful. Because we now have a very good register, we have almost done half the job towards a very successful and a very credible election. We now know those who are legally qualified to vote. Again, we are busy sorting out the issue of training the ad hoc staff, who will be involved in implementing the election itself. What we’ve done now is to design a befitting curriculum; a befitting training manual, which we want to make sure that every trainee has a copy. And we intend to produce about 14,000 copies. We are dealing with 12,000 trainees. We are working with tertiary institutions in Anambra State. These tertiary institutions are the ones that will give us the ad hoc staff both at the supervisory level and the poll presiding levels. Once we have these ad hoc staff nominees certified by the tertiary institutions, we will train them. What about logistics? Logistics have posed a serious problem in the past. But this time around, we are taking adequate care of logistics. Apart from the fact that we intend to hire quite a number of vehicles within and outside Anambra State, we also want to deploy Toyota Hilux vehicles belonging to the Independent National Electoral Commission, so that our staff members from the headquarters will use them for the purposes of supervision. With that, we are sure that come what may, the problem of logistics is being adequately addressed and we will not experience the issue of electoral officers going late to the election. We want to deploy very early; begin deployment on Thursday, so that by Friday night, we would have deployed to the polling units. We shall use what I call ‘super alert’ in the special centres. They are usually very close to the polling units. We will deploy them in the evening of Friday, so that early in the morning on Saturday by 4am, we will start moving to the polling units. We intend to hire vehicles for two days; Friday and Saturday. They will come on Friday morning and we will release them on Sunday morning. In other words, mobility will not be a problem. We hope to be able to use them to move effectively from one location to the other. Right now, we have almost fully deployed all our non-sensitive materials because what we did in times past, which was quite Herculean and quite cumbersome, was that we deployed the non-sensitive materials almost on the eve of the election. And these were quite enormous. They caused pain and agony to us. What we now do is that we have deployed them. When the sensitive materials come in on Friday, it is very easy to deploy to the various polling units. So we have done quite a lot and I can say that we are ready. Some civil society organisations have raised questions about inadequate voter education. We’re trying to make sure that we do not run foul of the system in the area of voter education. Unless the masses are aware of their rights and privileges and, again, their responsibilities in the electoral process, they will not come out to participate. We want to destroy election apathy. We are conducting voter education at various levels. We started two weeks ago and our voter education programme will continue until around November 3. By then, we would have adequately satisfied the bulk of the people in Anambra State, so that they will know what to do. We are depending on the services of the National Youth Service Corps. We are collaborating with the director of the NYSC here in Anambra State, as well as the local government inspectors of the NYSC. This way, we will be in a position to tap the energy of the NYSC with our ad hoc staff. There will be no qualms. This time around, we will make it. With the release of the voters’ register, have you sorted out the issues of missing polling units, double registration, both intentional and unintentional? We have no problems. Our voter register is sound. We have no problem with the voter register. What about the case of having polling units in places where people don’t live, like forests and shrines? We have addressed those ones. I never said polling units were in shrines. I never said that. I don’t know where people got that impression from. What I said was that I found some polling units in farmlands, quite far from where people stay. And I deployed the polling units near to where people are. From the data released about the voters’ register, Anambra has very high youthful population. What are the security arrangements going to be like? You should note that from November, all eyes will be on Anambra State. The police would be fully deployed. The Nigerian Army will be in Anambra State; civil defence will be in Anambra State. I have been working with what we call the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security. They work hand-in-hand in ensuring that security issues are adequately addressed. We are aware of the flashpoints and we are beginning to address them. There is enough security for the election. When the youth see that you are transparent, you are open and you mean business, they will respect you. It is when they feel that you have a hidden agenda or you have a preferred candidate that they will raise issues. What is the strength of the security personnel that you will be expecting? That is strictly for the police. I have 4,608 polling units. And if you have two policemen in each unit, and if you have to put about 30 policemen in each local government headquarters and we have about 21 local governments; and you put four policemen in each of the wards; I have 326 wards, that will give you an idea of the level of security we will have. How do you intend to handle the issue of observers and election monitors? There will be no crisis this time around. Only accredited observers will be allowed in; and those accredited by headquarters and not by me. And for those they will accredit, I will be given their profiles and names. When they come, I will allow them. That means all issues about accreditation should go to Abuja? Yes. How many candidates are in for the election? I think there are 24 candidates. From the latest data got from the continuous voter registration, what is the voting strength of Anambra State? About 1.8 million voters. Is it true that there are now more female voters in Anambra State than male? There are more women than men. As a matter of fact, there are more educated women here in Anambra State than men. The men don’t go to school. The majority of the men want to be traders. They want to be businessmen. They want to be ‘backwarding’ and forwarding agents. They want to make money. Because of that, most of them don’t know their basic rights. In those days, Anambra used to top the country in terms of education but nowadays, the story is different. Are you promising Nigeria, the world and Anambra State that… I want to let you know that as far elections are concerned, this November 16 election is going to be the model election. It is going to be the reference point of the best of elections we have ever had. In years to come, people will refer to this election as the election that had been perfected to make Nigerians proud. I am glad to tell you that I am putting my life, my integrity and all that I have to making sure that this election is second to none; that this election will be an election that Nigerians will rank high in years to come. #PunchMobile
Posted on: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 07:20:51 +0000
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