INEC: 20,000 personnel required for Anambra poll
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Anambra State says it requires about 20,000 personnel to conduct a hitch-free and successful governorship election.
The State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr. Nkwachukwu Orji, who said this yesterday in Awka during a two-day workshop with Civil Society Situation Room in preparation for the governorship election, said the commission had already commenced training of those on ground.
Orji said the workshop was targeted at providing platform for the civil societies to interact with the INEC management to review the activities so far carried out by the commission in order to make plans for the future.
He said that a total of 35 candidates from various registered political parties emerged from the party’s primaries. He, however, said that some of the parties conducted theirs without the presence of the electoral umpire.
He listed the three elements that would define the election to include the pro-Biafra agitators, general discontentment in the entire South East region as well as the security challenges in the region which might rob off in the electoral process.
On the challenges already being faced by the commission, Orji highlighted funding, erratic power supply, bureaucratic delays, discontentment on the part of the electorate, as major ones, but expressed optimism in the ability of the commission to scale through.
Earlier, the convener of the conference and Executive Director, Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC), Clement Nwankwo, described the Anambra election as crucial to the body in view of its peculiarity.
Nwankwo said the poll would not only serve as a test run to the 2019 general elections, but would send a signal on the maturity of the nation’s democracy.