Ndi Anambra, it’s your call

 “Yoruba ‘Ronu” (roughly translated as “Yoruba race, ponder a while”) was the title of a play and rallying call made by legendary thespian, the late Hubert Ogunde, in the thick of the Western Region crisis under the First Republic. Ogunde’s objective with his 1964 play, which became the most famous in his rich repertoire, was to get the Yoruba people onto a path of deep reflection and reality check amidst in-fighting that he perceived to severely disadvantage them in the emerging dynamics of then nascent Nigerian nationhood. That play was such a biting attack on the premier of the Western Region at the time that Ogunde’s theatre company was banned from the region, marking the first instance of literary censorship in post-independence Nigeria. The ban was in place until 1966 when it was lifted by the military government that overthrew the republic. “Otito Koro” (meaning “Truth is Bitter”) was another offering from Ogunde’s repertoire that satirized political events of 1963 in the Western Region.

As Anambra State faces a momentous governorship election this Saturday, 6th  November, amidst tension, it is Ogunde’s line we are adapting to call on the people to ponder on why it is important to make the most of the opportunity. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has affirmed readiness to conduct the poll, which will feature 18 political parties fielding candidates from which some 2.5million registered voters could choose across Anambra’s 5,720 polling units. INEC Chairman Professor Mahmood Yakubu told the joint National Assembly committee on INEC and Electoral Matters on Wednesday, last week, that the commission had delivered all non-sensitive materials to the state’s 21 council areas and had perfected its logistics. “As far as INEC is concerned, we are good to go on 6th November. We have trained the requisite number of ad hoc staff for the election and we have also mobilised members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) for efficient distribution of materials on election day,” he was reported saying. With non-sensitive materials already on ground, only sensitive materials are left to be taken out from safekeep and dispatched to points of use, and that conventionally will be on the eve of the election. So, we must take INEC’s word that all is set.

Against the backdrop of news reports that there was mass resignation of electoral ad hoc staff in the state, the commission has come out to assure that it has all the staff it needs to conduct a successful poll. Resident Electoral Commissioner Nwachukwu Orji, early last week, said: “INEC is still in the process of recruiting ad hoc workers; in fact, we just finished the last training before this false report. As the head of the commission in Anambra, I am telling you authoritatively that we have more than enough manpower for the conduct of the forthcoming governorship election in Anambra.” According to him, the ad hoc workers being recruited had not, as at the time he spoke, been issued appointment letters. “If we have not issued letters to them, how then can any of them resign?” he wondered as he cautioned against false alarms that could scare people off the election.

The alleged mass resignation narrative was obviously inspired by the threat from separatist Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) to impose a one-week lockdown on the Southeast zone if its detained leader, Nnamdi Kanu, is not released unconditionally by this Thursday. Kanu is being detained and prosecuted for sundry charges by the Federal Government following his re-arrest abroad last June after he fled the country in 2017 amidst similar prosecution. IPOB had since 9th August called a weekly sit-at-home to protest the detention of Kanu, and it subsequently modified the action to any day Kanu is to appear in court. The group lately scaled up to one-week lockdown threat following Kanu’s court appearance on 21st October. Although all lockdown notices had met with robust assurances by government and security agencies that people would be fully protected as they go about their lawful chores in disregard of IPOB, the weekly sit-at-home has been substantially complied with in most Southeast states, including Anambra. Meanwhile, there have been successful attacks staged against non-compliers with the lockdown; and there are indications the compliance itself is as much from a dread among Southeast residents of IPOB agents violently enforcing the measure, as much as from quantum sympathy for the group’s cause, at least at the grassroots. Besides, the Southeast has been wracked by a violent insurgency attributed to the military wing of IPOB, the Eastern Security Network (ESN), and Anambra has been the epicentre and has recorded many deaths to the violence.

“Ndi Anambra must know that it is what you put into the poll this Saturday that you will get in outcome.”

Government has vowed to spare no effort in ensuring the 6th November poll holds in a secure environment and the police have deployed massively, with some 36,000 personnel mobilised, in readiness to protect voters against any harassment. Yet there are indications voter turnout on election day could be considerably low – partly out of the fear of IPOB by voters, but also largely in solidarity with the group. Not that voter turnout has always been high in Anambra elections: it was 21.74 percent turnout out of some 2million registered voters in the 2017 governorship poll. But there are fears the showing will be more dismal this time around. Feelers from the grassroots last week suggested that some state residents suspect there is an agenda to foist a candidate on them regardless of their preference, making their participation needless, while some others consider abstaining in protest against Kanu’s fate and solidarity with IPOB’s cause.

It is good that there are talks of exploring political solution to the Kanu issue. But Ndi Anambra must know that it is what you put into the poll this Saturday that you will get in outcome. The election will hold, because INEC is set and government has vowed to do all it takes to secure the poll environment. And that means a winner will emerge, no matter how low the voter turnout is and short of internal dynamics that could make the poll inconclusive. The Nigerian electoral law does not stipulate a minimum threshold of voter turnout required for an election to be valid, hence a winner will get declared once other conditions are met under the first-past-the-post system that this country operates. If too many eligible voters stay away from participating in the poll, they would be willfully inviting the minority to foist their rule on the majority. And neither does IPOB or its sympathisers have any benefit to derive from seeking to disrupt the poll, because that would stoke apathy and thereby incur the rule of the minority over the majority. In other words, it will be lack of enlightened self-interest to either abstain from participation or obstruct those seeking to participate in the poll.

There is, of course, the possibility of excessive policing of the election intimidating potential voters; and that is besides insinuations of potential misapplication of state power to keep voters at bay, which was not helped by the threat of imposition of a state of emergency by the Federal Government. But Anambrarians must know such schemes work only if these succeed in keeping them away from the ballot box. The challenge is to defy all hurdles to get to your respective polling unit and cast your vote within the bounds of the law. INEC has said the conduct of the election will be “embarrassingly transparent,” and that should assuage fears of any agenda to throw up a predetermined ‘winner’ from the poll. In any event, the processes of the electoral body have become so institutionalised that it will be difficult even for its own officials to manipulate results if other stakeholders, including participating political parties and enlightened voters, stay alert to tracking the collation proceedings. 

Anabrarians have no excuse for staying away from the election this Saturday, and neither will they have a basis for holding the incoming governor accountable if he emerges by the will of a minority. Ndi Anambra, it is entirely your call.