Anambra Polls: Political Parties Scramble For Voters Cards

CYRIACUS IZUEKWE

The upcoming governorship election in Anambra State has taken another dimension as the election draws closer. The leading political parties are mapping out strategies to outwit each other to win the election.

The election will be coming up on Saturday 18 November, 2017 barely two weeks away unless the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, says otherwise.

P.M.EXPRESS gathered that the leading political parties have realised that the election will not be an easy sail for any of them if something urgent was not done to garner more votes in order to win.

It was gathered that apart from house to house campaigns to win the support of the electorates, another strategy embarked upon was the recent alleged scrambling for voters cards by the three leading political parties.

From the look of things, the three top parties involved in the scramble were PDP, APC and APGA while the other parties were merely campaigning asking the voters to secure their PVC cards and vote for the credible candidates on the election day.

Our findings showed that it was not that the parties involved in the buying of the cards were forcefully taking the voters cards from the electorates, but they were being induced with offers of some money and promised certain political appointments will come from their areas if such party wins the election.

But it was also gathered that some parties initially offered between N5,000 to N10,000 to persuade some electorates to release their cards for keep until the election day but it has now been increased to N20,000 and above because of the scrambling and high demands.

How this will translate into voting on the election day was not yet clear. Sources said that the mopping up of voters cards by parties was going on in almost all the local government areas across the state.

Some of the local governments where this brisk business were said to be going on were Onitsha, Ogbaru, Idemili, Ihiala, Orumba, Aguata and others.

When P.M.EXPRESS spoke to some of the leaders of the political parties, they confirmed and said it all started after one of the leading parties was discovered doing such and then others joined.

The leaders who did not want their names mentioned said that the price has gone up as willing voters have raised the bar before they will surrender their voters cards to such parties.

“We are buying the cards through our coordinators across the wards but the major problem now is that the willing electorates have increased the money which has affected the budget” said a party leader.

It was gathered that some ward, unit and state coordinators were tasked to compile the list of those who have voters cards in their various wards and units. Once the electorate presents the card, the party involved will pay certain amount of money, collect the card and keep in the party’s custody until the election day.

On the election day, it was gathered that the parties will then bring the list of those they have their voters cards as compiled in the various wards,  pay the balance and monitor the voting at the polling units to ensure that such voters complied with the agreement.

However, some voters have resisted such temptation and insisted that they will not trade their voters cards and will vote their choices on the election day.

Meanwhile, the churches were not left out in the politics going on in the state. Sources said some church leaders were working for some party candidates mobilising their members and assisting to gather the voters card for the election.

P.M.EXPRESS reports that it appeared that the election will hold as scheduled following the recent decision by the Federal Government to deployed about 21, 000 security personnel to the state for the election as INEC had earlier declared that they were ready for the election.