With less than a week to the governorship election in Anambra State, those thinking the Anambra State off-season gubernatorial election slated for November 6 would be a still-born should better have a rethink.
Despite the tense atmosphere and on-going agitations in the state, the Federal Government has plainly said the exercise would take place as scheduled.
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, had at different fora restated that November 6 is sacrosanct.
The Commission has since published the final list of candidates to convince any doubting Thomas it was not out for any jamboree. It has also urged Anambra people to go collect their permanent voter cards (PVC) from today, November 1.
INEC had also announced some innovations to improve electoral integrity, with the use of the Bi-modal Voter Accreditation System, (BVAS), by which it hopes to reduce human interference in the electoral process.
Apart from the military that had since been deployed to the State to check the rising insecurity, the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, announced the deployment of about thirty-four thousand (34,000) personnel; over 100 senior police officers of the ranks of Deputy Inspectors-General (DIGs); Assistant Inspectors-General (AIGs), Commissioners of Police (CPs), among others, have also been deployed.
The governorship election is holding amid high insecurity in the state that could worsen the voter apathy that has always attended elections in the State since 2010.
The INEC commissioner and chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, said, on national television on Thursday, that INEC was spending a lot to organise the election. He, however, refused to hint at the likely total cost.
Although the INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, has in several fora assured that the Anambra election would be embarrassingly transparent, doubts still abound.
