Anambra Election: Chidoka disappointed in INEC

Osita Chidoka

Chidoka expresses disappointment in INEC.

Osita Chidoka, the flag bearer of the United Progressive Party (UPP) in the upcoming Anambra gubernatorial election expressed disappointment with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Thursday, on Channels TV’s Politics Today.

Chidoka said INEC has not done well by saying it would transmit results from the polling units to the central server.

“Our approach is that INEC has done a major disservice to this country by refusing to do the transmission of results from the polling units to their central server.

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“All that has been on before and yet we got many cases of election malpractice. The issue was that if the result has been transmitted from the 4,608 polling units in Anambra state, it means that by the time we take the result from the polling units to the ward for collation, it will just be for us to collate what we already know but now they are leaving a gap where as happened in previous elections in Anambra or in other states, when you get to the collation centre and the collation officers will now collate something different from what is in form EC8A – If that happens, nobody else can reverse that except the court; that the challenge.

“I thought that INEC had made a quantum leap to get to the point where once the results are announced in the polling units, it is inputted into their card reader,” he said.

He said although he was disappointed at the move, he is well prepared for the election.

“I’m disappointed but I’m encouraged that we are ready for the election. It is a game dampener for me and when I asked the INEC Chairman, I got what I would consider as a strange reason for this; which is, that INEC guidelines have not been updated to accept using the electronic transmission. The law has been amended, allowing INEC to use electronic forms.”

“Why will it take INEC longer than it took the National Assembly,” he asked.

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He, therefore, expressed satisfaction about the preparations so far, ahead of Saturday’s polls.

“From the standpoint of my campaign, we are very satisfied, today has been an interesting day for us, all our volunteers were unharmed, we made contact with all our people at the local government, at the world level, we tested our new application with the movement of the sensitive materials with INEC.

“One of the new things we’ve added is that we’ve added an incident form that includes reporting the names of the officers in charge of every polling unit. So, if there is any manipulation, we will not be saying INEC, we will be talking about the officer who is involved and we will put the person’s name in our hall of infamy.

“We are going to be having a website, it will be live on social media, starting from Saturday morning, we will be reporting in real time, infractions in the various wards and if we get to the collation centers and there is misbehavior by the police, any police without a name tag, we will be reporting that officer online and we will be taking photographs of all incidents happening around all the polling units,” Chidoka said.