The Akwa Ibom state local government poll is another sham in the series of elections in Nigeria.
These are the thoughts of some election observers who monitored the elftion on Saturday.
The All Progressives Congress had earlier pulled out of the poll citing irregularities.
But with some attendant videos made available online by some observers like Udo Silas , it showed the complicity of the Akwa Ibom State Independent Electoral Commission AKISIEC on the said irregularities. The videos revealed that in virtually all the polling units, just one hundred ballot papers were released for polling units which had a record of over six hundred voters.
The polling officers upon interrogation displayed that they were only given one ballot paper for the chairmanship and one other for the councillorship totalling just one hundred ballot papers.
They further revealed that they were not given the chance to check the materials given to them by AKISIEC and that they wee dispatched to go conduct the poll in their polling units.
Udo Silas in his lamented ” Would like to know AkISIEC response to these visuals. Was it so difficult to get it right? Was the act of not getting it right deliberate? How far reaching was this anomaly? 20%? 30%? 50% or 70%?
What does this imply? Can results so declared be representative of current persuasions? Actions like these do not help in inculcating the democratic culture. Electoral popularity so acclaimed, should never waiver in putting herself to test within the confines of truth and service. We undermine ourselves as a people when we applaud wrong just for today’s lucre.
Who should bear the blame here? Is it AKISIEC? Is AkISIEC one and the same as Akwa Ibom State Government? Who funds AKISIEC? Who is AkISIEC answerable to? Does the failure of AKISIEC in this regard mean failure of government? What legacy is being borne here? So many questions. Time would surely throw up more questions.”
