By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

An Independent election observer group, Yiaga Africa, said on Wednesday that a pre-election survey conducted by the group in the state did not in anyway suggest that the activities of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) could adversely affect the November 6 governorship election in Anambra State.

Speaking in Awka, the state capital, a board member of Yiaga, Ezenwa Nwagwu, said that there are no visible signs suggesting that insecurity would hamper the exercise.

Rather, he identified voluntary voter apathy as a major threat to the poll, saying that only those who saw elections as a political economy that would always exaggerate the insecurity aspect of the exercise.

Nwangwu said: “No winner of Anambra governorship election has ever emerged with more than 300,000 votes out of about two million registered votes in the state. So, apathy is the major fear in the election not insecurity.

“The fear of security threats has always been there in the past and should be guarded against. The major challenge is to get the Anambra electorate to come out and cast their votes.

“Yiaga is engaging the relevant stakeholders including the police, NSCDC, traditional rulers, the media and political parties to change the narrative of elections in the state

While saying that Yiaga would deploy 548 workers to polling units, collation centres and other layers of the process, the YIAGA board member urged residents of the state who had attained voting age to endeavour to register and ensure that they cast the votes on the election day.”

On his part, a constitutional lawyer, Prof Nnamdi Aduba, another Yiaga board member, decried what he called the docility of Nigerians towards election matters

He observed that election litigants hardly see election observers’ findings as good evidence in times of disputes.

Also, the Yiaga Project Manager, Mr. Paul James, said the group would deploy Watching The Vote workers to 250 of the 5,720 polling units in the state to capture the true situation on the election day in form of pilot survey.

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