Postscript Anambra

 Against all odds – actual and projected – the Anambra State governorship election held and a winner emerged. Professor Chukwuma Soludo of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) won in 19 of the state’s 21 council areas with 112,229 votes to defeat Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Valentine Ozigbo, who won in one council area and polled 53,807 votes to emerge second. Senator Andy Uba of the All Progressives Congress (APC) did not win any council area but emerged in third position with 43,285 votes, while Senator Ifeanyi Ubah of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) won a council area and polled 21,261 votes to emerge in fourth place. The poll is on record as having yielded among the least rancorous outcomes by Nigerian standard of political contestation. It was a game-changer on many positive fronts, but had its own flaws. All in all, it was a good election that showed up paradigm shifts in Nigerian electoral culture.

The major election held on 6th November and supplementary poll on 9th November under the cloud of perhaps the worst insecurity scare this country ever knew. In the build-up to the election, the Southeast region – Anambra in particular – was wracked by deadly violence, which ostensibly informed the Muhammadu Buhari presidency’s threat to impose emergency rule on the state. Separatist Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) that is blamed for much of the violence had initially waved an omnibus ‘no-election-will-hold’ red flag, which it later moderated to a threatened ‘sit-at-home’ for a period spanning the election schedule. This the group eventually renounced on the eve of election and turned around to urge on Anambra residents to vote. Given the crushing effect of ‘sit-at-homes’ the group previously ordered and a pervasive dread of rogue enforcers even when it had ostensibly called off the action, very few people took its last minute backdown as sufficiently signalling genuine armistice and clear coast for peaceful poll. It was on that premise the police deployed some 36,000 personnel to secure the election environment, besides relative complementary deployments by other security agencies. Thus, the Anambra poll passed as about the most ‘militarised’ in recent history, and this combined with the dread of IPOB was considered strongly potentiated to yield a ‘no voter turnout’ election.

But the Anambra election wasn’t by any means a ‘no voter turnout.’ True, the poll featured low voter turnout, but in the circumstance this exceeded modest expectations. In sheer statistical terms, the turnout was low and substantially dipped (10.2 percent of about 2.5million registered voters) compared with 2017 (21.7 percent of 2.06million registered voters) and 2013 (23.8 percent of 1.77million registered voters). But in value terms, it marked a remarkable defiance of odds by Anambra voters to exercise their franchise; and considering the circumstance, it showed electoral willpower that was exemplary. In other words, the Anambra electorate showed that no adverse winds could keep determined voters away from performing their civic duty, and that is a moral that should be instructive to voters everywhere across this country. If laurels were to be awarded for how the poll went, these should go to the Anambra voter. 

“(Vote buying): while it helps to intensify voter education…significant behavioural change is a long shot until Nigeria’s economic fortune changes.” 

 Despite the pre-election scare about insecurity, the governorship poll held with few security breaches and could well number among the most peaceful of Nigerian elections. This could be for a combination of factors, among them the massive presence of security personnel, the apparent restraint – you may prefer to say containment – of IPOB, and the seeming adherence to the code of peaceful conduct by political gladiators who otherwise could have instigated their supporters onto restive conduct as could have resulted in a turbulent poll. And there are morals to learn from all these factors. A clear departure from past experience, for instance, was that despite their massive presence, security operatives managed to put up the right comportment in the Anambra poll, such that there were very few incidents of voter intimidation and harassment by their members recorded. This reflected a new positive ethic in the security establishment, one that should dampen stock fear about anticipated negative impact of ‘militarisation’ of elections. It is a paradigm shift the security agencies are now under a historical burden to sustain in future elections. 

It was also a positive element in the Anambra election that contrary to the tendency which used to characterise the Nigerian political culture, power gladiators in the poll were restrained – at least, overtly so – such that even with acute challenges in the processes of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the poll, they kept a calm composure and managed to keep their supporters in check. This is a standard of behaviour to which political actors everywhere across this country must be held. There was the menace of vote buying that hobbled the Anambra poll, and it is doubtful it could have been otherwise considering that the gladiators had claimed they could not make the most of the time statutorily prescribed for campaign amidst the severe challenge of insecurity that preceded the election. Even then, vote buying is by no means peculiar to the Anambra poll. It is a malpractice that characterises Nigerian elections, and one to which INEC, the security agencies and other relevant organs of government are yet to find effective remedy. And that is so, if you asked me, because of the ecosystem in which these elections are held. Blunt truth is: while it helps to intensify voter education against the menace, significant behavioural change is a long shot until Nigeria’s economic fortune changes.       

And by the way, whatever you may think of IPOB, it is after all not impervious to reason or reality. Whatever was its motivation, the group held down during the Anambra poll (notice that it has been back in virulent mode thereafter) and allowed the poll to hold peacefully. This suggests a potential window of opportunity for engagement with the group towards taming its bile.

As for INEC, the Anambra governorship poll was a mixed bag, but one that afforded the electoral body some redirection of the hallmarks of electoral culture in Nigeria. Apparently owing to intensive engagement it had with relevant stakeholders before the poll, the electoral body enjoyed a higher level of trust that made tolerance room for evident backslides in its logistical processes. The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BIVAS) technology that the commission deployed did serve to further tighten the noose against historical abuses of the electoral system, but the BIVAS device malfunctioned at a substantial number of voting centres and necessitated extension of voting beyond election day. Besides, there was widespread late deployment of personnel and materials that compelled delayed commencement of voting in many places. The commission adduced reasons for these challenges and responded as the occasion warranted with remedial measures, but the marvel was you could see amidst all these a high level of accommodation by political actors and voters as was almost unprecedented in Nigerian political culture. 

More significant, perhaps, is that the electoral body has considerably enhanced the transparency of elections with its real time online posting of results and thereby won greater credibility for electoral outcomes. That should explain why the Anambra poll yielded among the least rancorous outcomes by Nigerian standard of political contestation. And it wasn’t all about politicians. When the returning officer deferred declaration of a winner till after the supplementary poll held on 9th November in Ihiala council area despite having announced the results for the 20 other council areas,, the Nigerian media almost uncharacteristically refrained from calling the election ahead of INEC. Elections were preemptively called in the past apparently because there were fears the electoral commission could spring a dubious ambuscade with fraudulent outcomes, and the presumed way to forestall such an ambush was running ahead of it with declarations inferred from bits and pieces of results it already announced. It was a grossly illegal tack, but one stoked by sheer distrust of the electoral body. The experience with the Anambra poll, however, marked a paradigm shift in this regard.

Integrity of elections is largely a function of perception. As such, when INEC had challenges with its processes in Anambra, these did not detract from the integrity of the poll. The apparent moral here is that Nigerians could bear with operational challenges in conducting elections when there is an understanding that the electoral body is not thereby up to playing games.