By Okechukwu Onuegbu
ANSIEC accredited election observers for the Anambra State Local Government election have commended the State governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo for providing the commission with necessary support which led to the successful conduct of the 2024 Council poll.
Anambra State residents had last week Saturday, September 28 held Council poll during which the candidates of All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) thrashed other political party candidates to emerge as elected Chairmen of 21 LGAs and Councillors of 326 electoral wards.
Over 100 observers for the poll, duly accredited by the electoral umpire, Anambra State Independent Electoral Commission (ANSIEC), having monitored the election across the polling units, said it was successful due to governor's commitment to his campaign promises and passion to drive democracy to the grassroots.
The Coordinator ANSIEC accredited election observers, Prince Chris Azor, who gave the commendations while addressing a post election press conference at Awka, Anambra State capital, said they were impressed with the conduct of the officials of the electoral umpire, impartiality of the security and voters during and after the election.
Azor, who is also State Coordinator, International Peace and Civic Responsibility Centre (IPCRC), said they did not observe any irregularity, vote buying and violence even though there were low turnout of voters and late commencement of the proccess at some polling units.
He, therefore, advocated for governance reforms, integrity and capacity building in Local Government Administration with a view to strengthening democracy in the third of tiers of government which had suffered prolonged absence of democracy in the past.
"It's our observation that the Anambra State Local Government Election of Saturday 28th September, 2024 held as scheduled. The election organized and conducted by the Anambra State Independent Electoral Commission (ANSIEC) was free, fair, credible and peaceful.
"The exercise witnessed initial delay in commencement due to logistics and personnel challenges. However, polls eventually progressed smoothly without any recorded conflict, violence or malpractices.
"We sincerely, commend the election management body, ANSIEC, security agencies, sundry stakeholders and most importantly, the citizens of Anambra State who came out to exercise their franchise after over ten (10) years of waiting for democracy at the local government level.
"We also, sincerely appreciate our observers team and partners, the media and political parties for their peaceful conduct and patriotism. We recommend better strategic logistics management to forestall delays in commencement of polls. In the course of our work, we observed inadequate provision of voting cubicles as required by secret ballot principle. This gap needs to be filled as best practice.
"In future elections there's need to commence early voter education and citizen sensitization for improved voter turnout. We observed high number of voters in some polling units. We therefore, recommend splitting of polling units to contain fewer number of voters not exceeding five (5) hundred," he stated.