#AnambraDecides2021: Extension of election not new – Former INEC official

“There are instances when INEC had to postpone elections in the past, reschedule or even extend the time for collation and counting,” Oluwole said.

A former director of voter education, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, has said the extension of the ongoing Anambra governorship election by INEC from Saturday to Sunday is not a new phenomenon in Nigeria.

He spoke on Sunday during a programme tagged; “The Morning Show,” on Arise Television.

Mr Osaze-Uzzi said it was okay for INEC to extend elections if there are technical issues that cannot be fixed by the commission on the scheduled day, adding that extension of elections is not a new phenomenon in Anambra.

He said: “There are instances when INEC had to postpone elections in the past, reschedule or even extend the time for collation and counting.

“This is not the first, there are precedents for it, starting from Anambra itself. I think about eight years ago, INEC was prevented from deploying materials from the wards upto the polling units, because some people alleged that materials were not complete and result sheets were missing, so we extended the election.”

He added that some extensions in the past were based on court orders or violence.

He also explained that by virtue of the constitution, the election will be conducted not earlier than 150 days to the expiration of the tenure of the current governor or not later than 30 days to that expiration.

“We still have quite a number of weeks or months until the expiration of the tenure of the governor, but the sooner the commission concludes, the better for Anambra.”, he said.

On recurring logistics issues

Speaking further, Mr Osaze-Uzzi admitted that the logistics issue is a recurring one, as INEC experiences difficulties in the prompt delivery of election materials.

He said: “I don’t know exactly what happened in areas where there were difficulties with early delivery of materials, but they mentioned that there were no security officials to escort the INEC officials to the polling unit.”

“It is extremely frustrating for people to get to the polling units without having to vote immediately, especially elderly people, people with disabilities and those who have other things to do.”

He recommended that INEC must sit down to deliberate on how to resolve the logistics problems ahead of the 2023 election.

The election

According to INEC, the 2021 gubernatorial election in Anambra State, which started on Saturday, November 6, was extended to Sunday, to allow voters who were not able to vote due to malfunctioning of the Bimodal Accreditation System (BVAS) to vote.

Nkwachukwu Orji, the state INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, disclosed this during a press briefing at the INEC headquarters on Saturday.

He said the measure became necessary to enable more eligible voters to cast their votes in the areas affected, as the BVAS malfunctioned due to software glitches.

Similarly, Saeed Husaini, director, Research, Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), said at a news conference on the election analysis on Saturday that the failure of the BIVAS was widely reported across numerous polling units in the state.

Aside from the BIVAS failure, the centre also observed lateness of officials in commencing accreditation and polling, electoral malpractice including vote-buying among others.