ANAMBRA, FEBRUARY 9, 2017 – Ahead of this year’s governorship election in Anambra state, the All Progressives Grand Alliance has accused its major opponent in the election, the All Progressives Congress, of buying up voters cards in the area, apparently to rig the poll.
APGA said the APC was doing that in the guise of registration of members exercise in the state
The APGA, through the state-owned Anambra Broadcasting Service, warned the people of the state not to allow themselves to be hoodwinked by politicians.
It alleged that the APC was asking people to submit their voters’ cards after the on-going APC Membership Continuous Registration Exercise in the state.
It asked the people not to be disenfranchised by selling their voting rights.
Reacting, the All Progressives Congress denied the allegation.
The Secretary of the Anambra State APC Continuous Registration Committee, Mr. Ford Ozumba dismissed the allegation, saying that it was ‘neither here, nor there’.
He said the committee’s specific mandate was to register new members and revalidate the membership of the old members “and not to buy voters cards”.
He said, “We are only here for the registration of new members, which is also taking place in other states and there are no such allegations in those states.
“The provision in the registration form requires identification of the would-be members and one could identify himself or herself with either the national ID card, Driving Licence or the voters’ card.
“There is therefore no reason for us to buy the voters cards. We don’t even have money to buy people’s cards and this kind of rumour is not good for the development of democracy.”
Ozumba who defended the decision of the committee members to register some stakeholders in their homes rather than at public squares, said most of such stakeholders had no time to start queuing for the exercise after their day’s work.
He described the exercise in the state as successful, noting that there was so much enthusiasm among the people of Anambra State to identify with APC.
He reminded the people that the registration exercise had nothing to do with the party’s governorship primary as erroneously believed by some people.
