APC Carrying Out a Door-To-Door Campaign For Participation In Today’s Poll Despite Threat To Boycott The Polls

Despite the call for a boycott  of today's supplementary governorship election in Anambra State  by the National leadership of the All Peoples Congress APC,  there are indications that the party would eventually participate in the poll.
This view was expressed by a political analyst while contributing to a live television programme monitored in Abuja yesterday.

The analyst who identified himself as Melville Ebo said he  was an indigene of AnambraState based in Abuja adding that he was in his hometown located in Onitsha South Local Goverment Area last Wednesday where he witnessed agents of APC carrying out a door-to-door campaign for participation in today's poll.
Said he: "Even though the national leadership of the APC has said the party would boycott today's poll, I witnessed agents of the party while they were engaged in a door-to-door campaign during which they  asked  the people to vote for their candidate."


It would be recalled that the leadership of the party had called for a total cancellation of the initial election held on November 16, due to alleged wide-spread irregularities. The party's  declaration was a response to INEC's declaration of the poll as inconclusive after announcing part of the results which indicated that the All Progressive Grand Alliance  APGA candidate Mr. Willie Obiano  was leading. The electoral body had later fixed today for the conduct of the supplementary election in 210 polling units where the first election had been cancelled.

On its own part, INEC has assured the people of the state that the commission had plugged all loopholes to ensure that today's exercise is free of the hitches which characterized the previous poll.
This assurance was given yesterday by  Mr Kayode Idowu, the Special Assistant on Media to the INEC Chairman Prof. Attahiru Jega.

Citing specific measures that have been put in place by the commission to ensure that today's poll is conducted smoothly, he said staff of the commission who participated in the first election  had been retrained with a view to ensure that the mistakes of the last exercise are avoided today.
Said he: " INEC would certainly do a damn good job in today's election. We have also ensured that adequate arrangement was made to ensure that the problem of logistics which we faced during the last election is tackled. We are sure that our personnel and materials would be arrive at the polling booths on time today."

However, he insisted that despite all the arrangements that have been made, it would be wrong for anybody to expect the exercise to be perfect.
He dismissed the issues raised by the APC leadership which led a protest to the commission's Abuja headquarters last Thursday as stale adding that they had all been addressed by the commission in the past.
He challenged the party's leadership to present evidence to substantiate their allegations instead of engaging " in a media show".
He further stated that the commission would still conduct an administrative enquiry to ascertain the roles played by its personnel who participated in the November 16 poll, adding that this would come after today's exercise.