Civil Society Groups List Grounds for Cancellation of Imo Guber Poll

There were strong signals at the weekend that the governorship election conducted in Imo State on April 11 might be cancelled owing to a cocktail of issues that impinge on the credibility of the partial results already declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The issues range from poor usage of the permanent voter cards and card readers to omission of the name and logo of a political party on the ballot papers used for the election.

INEC has declared the governorship election in Imo State inconclusive due to malpractices and failure of the card readers in some parts of the state and fixed April 25 for supplementary elections in 250 polling units across the 23 local government areas of the state.

But a coalition of civil society groups and constitutional lawyers, under the aegis of Association for Good Governance, have identified grounds, which they insist make the entire governorship election in the state substantially non-compliant to the electoral law and, therefore, fit for outright cancellation.

The group said Imo State, with 20.4 per cent PVC and card reader usage rate during the April 11 elections, according to INEC records, posted the worst usage rate in the country in the governorship election. The state has 1,803,030 registered voters, while 1,707,449 voters (94.7 per cent) collected their PVCs before the election. Association for Good Governance said the very low percentage of PVC usage did not comply with the INEC guidelines, which states that only PVCs could be used in the elections.

The guidelines for the conduct of the 2015 general elections pro- vide that where card readers fail to work and cannot be replaced, elections in such polling units will be postponed to the following day.

Although, INEC had reconsidered the guidelines midway into the presidential and National Assembly elections on March 28 and announced that at polling units where card readers failed to work, the presiding officer shall manually accredit voters by marking the register of voters, upon being satisfied that the person presenting the PVC is the legitimate owner of the card.

In the second case identified by the group of lawyers and civil society activists, the governorship candidate of Hope Democratic Party, Munonye Ikechukwu, had the name and logo of his party omitted from the ballot papers for the governorship and House of Assembly elections.

In a subsisting judgment in the case of Hon. Nnamdi Igbokwe, who was the member representing Ahiazu/Ezinihitte Federal Constituency of Imo State in 2011, the Court of Appeal held that where INEC failed to display a party’s name and symbol on the ballot paper for an election, that the election stood cancelled.

A lawyer, Chineme Uhuegbu, said in addition to helping to correct the anomalies in the poll, an entirely fresh governorship election would help to calm frayed nerves and prevent imminent crisis in the state. Other lawyers who also called for cancellation of the election and conduct of a fresh one were Wale Ogunade, who is the president of Voters Awareness Initiative, Mrs. Uche Okonkwo, and Sonnie Ekwowusi.

Sources close to INEC said the commission was already giving serious thought to the issues raised by the lawyers and civil society activists.