The Anambra electorate has spoken, giving its votes and the highest seat of the land to Charles Soludo, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). But what counts as the voice of the people if about 90% of these voices never spoke?
Again, Anambra has recorded low voter turnout in its governorship election. The turnout recorded in the State’s gubernatorial election this year may be the worst in the history of governorship elections in Nigeria.
The just concluded election in which Charles Soludo of the APGA emerged the winner saw just 10.38% voter turnout. This is lower than the 21.74% turnout rate the state recorded in its last election; even worse than the 16.33% turnout in the 2010 election.
A review of past elections in the state shows that it has consistently recorded low voter turnout.
An analysis of the results from the 21 LGAs in the state show that general voter turnout for the election stands at just 10.38%, which is the worst the state had recorded in its last 3 elections.
The poor turnout in this year’s governorship election may have been worsened by a number of factors including, the late arrival of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials and poor functionality of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) reported in many polling units.
In many of the polling units, there were reports of INEC officials arriving late with the voting materials to commence the exercise. There were also reports of the BVAS malfunctioning. These made INEC extend voting time.
Yiaga Africa noted that these challenges (late arrival of INEC personnel, poor functionality of the BVAS) stopped many people from voting, despite the extension.
The story was not different in Ihiala Local Government Area (LGA), where a supplementary election was conducted on Tuesday. The results of the LGA which was announced in the early hours of Wednesday sealed the victory of the APGA candidate, Charles Soludo.
In Ihiala LGA, a Channels Television reporter who was on ground in one of the polling units noted that as late as 12noon, no INEC official had been sighted even though some voters came out as early as 8am to cast their vote.
By LGA, Ogbaru LGA recorded the worst turnout in the 2021 guber election. It had just a 5.19% turnout rate. Idemili North, Onitsha South and Idemili South LGAs followed with a turnout of 5.79%, 5.83% and 5.87% respectively.
Among the 21 LGAs in Anambra, these four LGAs recorded the worst turnout rate in the state’s last two elections, except for Idemili South in the 2013 guber election.
On the other hand, Orumba North LGA recorded the highest turnout (33.14%) in the 2021 election. This is the highest turnout rate the LGA has had since 2013.
Njikoka LGA followed with a turnout of 17.05%, ahead of Anambra East with 14.58% turnout rate. Both LGAs turnout is lower than what they recorded in the 2017 and 2013 elections.
The Supervising Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Anambra State, Sam Egwu on his part, attributed the low voter turnout recorded in the election to the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group.
The REC stated that, “there is a whole state of fear that has been created by the politics of agitation for a separate state in this part of the country. IPOB has been able to enforce the sit-at-home order over time. So the fear of IPOB has become the beginning of wisdom.
We have had a problem with extremely low voter turnout. The voter turnout, I think, if you are scientific in terms of what we are seeing in many local governments, you are actually dealing with less than 25 percent voter turnout, and this is not really good for our democracy”.
Recall that weeks leading to the election, IPOB issued a 6-day sit-at-home order starting from November 5 in all the states in the South-East region as a way to put pressure on the Federal government to release its leader, Nnamdi Kanu from detention. However, the sit at home order was called off days to the elections, just like the previous ones the group issued in the 2017 Anambra guber election and 2019 general elections.
While the statement by the State’s REC may be true, the lack of trust in the electoral process may have also contributed to the low voter turnout witnessed in the election.
According to a survey conducted by SBM intelligence prior to the Anambra election, 26% of respondents noted that they would not vote in the election because they had lost faith in the electoral process.
The distrust in the electoral process is not peculiar to the people of Anambra, many Nigerians have also expressed distrust in the country’s electoral process whether state or general elections.
Regardless of the low voter turnout, Ndi Anambra has decided and given their mandate to Charles Soludo, albeit a weakened mandate, given that he is elected by a mere fraction of the entire voting population.
Going forward, INEC and the government may need to take lessons from the factors that led to the low voter turnout in the just concluded election in the state and do more to ensure higher voter turnout in subsequent elections in the state, and by extension the country’s general elections in 2023, as the bedrock of democracy rests on participation.