World enews: Anambra Election: Security Operatives Shut Down Ihiala Council, Force Voters To Raise Both Hands

There is a heavy presence of security personnel at the headquarters of the Ihiala Local Government Area over the scheduled supplementary governorship election.

The security agents, comprising police, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, the army and Department of State Services, in their large numbers, were available at the Local government to tighten up the security.

Some of the operatives requested that voters and passersby raised their two hands over their heads (a sign of submissiveness).

The state Commissioner of Police, Echeng Eworo Echeng had said, “We are not saying there is no fear; fear is everywhere as far as Anambra is concerned. We are sure what we have on ground here: the military, police, DSS, Civil

Defence we are capable of handling any situation that comes up.”

Recall that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Sunday fixed a date for a supplementary election in the council where the governorship poll did not hold at the weekend. INEC also suspended the collation of results for the governorship election.

Ihiala is the only local government area where elections did not hold out of the 21 council areas in the state.

INEC had on Sunday announced results for 20 out of the 21 local government areas with the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Charles Soludo, winning in 18.

Meanwhile, INEC has since commenced the deployment of election materials and Ad-hoc staff from the Ihiala Local Government Secretariat in Anambra State, to the various polling units.

INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, had announced on Monday that the supplementary election will hold from 10am to 4pm on Tuesday.

But, as of the time of filing this report at noon, the distribution of election materials is still ongoing at the Ihiala LGA secretariat.

At the Uzokwa Ward 3, the closest ward to the Ihiala Secretariat, there is no activity yet.

Recall that on Sunday, during the collation of results, the collation officer for Ihiala, Ahmadu Umar has claimed there was no election in the area.

He, however, did not state why there was no election in Ihiala.

He said there are 148,407 registered voters in the LGA, adding that the election didn’t take place in Ihiala.

There was a delay in the conduct of the Anambra State governorship election in the local government area of the state.

SaharaReporters had also reported the malfunctioning of the INEC’s Bimodal System machines, BIVAS as well as the tense security situation on Saturday, which affected the turnout and smooth flow of the election.