Ozigbo took about 15 minutes before he was able to vote. The slow process of the accreditation means the election would finish late
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the Anambra governorship election, Valentine Ozigbo, has voted at his polling unit amid large voter turnout.
Ozigbo arrived at the polling unit at about 10:45 AM and was accredited for about 15 minutes before he was handed his ballot paper.
The sluggish nature of the accreditation is threatening the election because of the long time spent in clearing each voter. There are at least 500 voters at the polling unit, and if a voter would be cleared in 15 minutes, the election is likely to drag into the night.
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Ozigbo, the PDP candidate, said the election looks good except for the delay in the accreditation which he said could disenfranchise other voters. He appealed to INEC to extend the voting time to allow eligible voters to participate in the election.
Ozigbo said: “I’m impressed with the turnout. If not for the delay, everything will be perfect. I’m worried that it took me that number of minutes to vote. At some point, there was no network. We had to improvise. I’m appealing to INEC and all the stakeholders to ensure that the right people are allowed to cast their votes. There is no more incidence form. The only option is to extend the time,” he said.
Election stats
The elections are held in 5,640 polling units across the 21 Local Governments and 326 wards of Anambra State
Anambra originally has 4,608 polling units, but INEC created an additional 1,112 for the purpose of this election. 86 polling units have no registered voters; hence, elections won’t be taking place there.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says 2,525,471 registered voters would be participating in the election.
Security deployment
The Nigerian Police Force deployed announced that it would deploy more than 34,000 personnel outside those serving in the state for the election.
Apart from the police, the military, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Nigeria Immigration Service and other paramilitary agencies deployed personnel for the election.