Many residents of Anambra State are relocating to neighbouring States over security concerns a few hours before the governorship election on Saturday.
The Nation noted the exercise may witness serious voter apathy.
Besides, the heavy deployment of over 34,000 security personnel by the Inspector General of Police, IGP Alkali Baba, has heightened fears of violence and attacks among residents.
Some of the residents were seen at different motor parks in the State boarding vehicles to Enugu, Delta, Edo and Abia, among others.
One of them, Chidera, told The Nation she was relocating to Asaba in Delta State until after the governorship election.
Maurice said she was on his way to Enugu on Thursday following threats by non-state actors.
But Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Mr C Don Adinuba, described such a claim as untrue.
He said those seen travellings were people from far places like Ayamelum who wanted to go home to cast their votes since they registered in their areas.
Adinuba said: “You know the Governor declared two-day work-free days in the State which are Thursday and Friday. The workers who live in urban centres used the opportunity to travel on time and again you know it’s still raining.
“No one is leaving Anambra State because of insecurity, those you saw are people from far areas in the State like Ayamelum, who want to go and vote
“If you say they are relocating, what State in Nigeria is safer than Anambra State? People should grow beyond such propaganda.”
The Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of operations, Zaki Ahmed, told The Nation that heavy deployment of security agencies was not to scare residents.
Rather, he said they were here to secure lives and property from the non- State actors, adding that they were also in Anambra to maintain neutrality.
He said the policemen would work with other sister agencies, in making sure that the governorship election was free and fair while calling on the residents to come out to cast their votes.
Anambra: YIAGA faults distributing PVCs on election eve
There are indications that the Independent National Electoral Commission does not have the total figure of collected Permanent Voters Cards for the Anambra gubernatorial elections scheduled for Saturday, November 6,2021. #
This is as Election Watch Civil Society Organization, YIAGA Africa, on Friday condemned the decision of Commission to distribute Permanent Voters Card to voters in Anambra, 24 hours to the elections.
The Director of YIAGA, Samson Itodo, stated this during a programme on Channels Television, ‘Politics today’.
The National Commissioner for the commission, Festus Okoye, during the Programme, had disclosed that INEC was still engaged in the distribution of PVCs to enable lots of voters to participate in the election.
According to Okoye, the commission had suffered delay due to the insecurity in the state.
He said, “As you have mentioned, we had a total of 81,770 PVCs. We brought them into Awka and distributed to the 21 LGAs in Anambra.
“We cannot harvest the figure of PVCs distributed now because distribution is going on simultaneously with distribution of sensitive materials, but in most of the local governments, we witnessed a huge turn up.
However, Itodo, who disagreed with the commission’s decision, said, “This is a drawback and it is a recession. This same commission, over the last series of elections, took the collection of PVC down to the polling units. They did that during the 2019 elections; they did it in all the elections we had afterwards.
“To come to an election of this nature and the commission is still distributing PVCs 24 hours to the elections really marks a recession and it is unacceptable.”
But Okoye gave words of assurance that the uncollected PVCs would not be compromised.
“The uncollected ones will not be compromised. No one can vote with a card that is not his own,” Okoye added.
