A rickshaw driver travels on a deserted roundabout in Onitsha, Anambra State, south-eastern Nigeria, on November 5, 2021, on the eve of a governorship election in a ballot being widely anticipated as a barometer for the country’s 2023 presidential vote. Voters in the restive southeastern Nigerian state of Anambra go to the polls on November 6, amid a massive police deployment, in a key test of electoral credibility ahead of a presidential race less than 18 months away.
Many people also wondered whether the huge contingent of security men was not brought to compromise the election process. Many other people wondered whether people will actually risk their lives by turning up to vote knowing that IPOB informants are probably looking out for those who would break the sit-at-home order. Mercifully, on the eve of the election IPOB announced that it had withdrawn the sit-at-home order and that people were free to go out and vote.
Not much can be done about vote buying and vote selling in a situation of extreme poverty that has afflicted majority of Nigerians especially since last year when the COVID-19 pandemic worsened the financial situation of most Nigerians. But the stakeholders who believe in the sanctity of elections must put in place a sensitisation programme against vote buying and selling if our democracy is to remain untainted.
So it is obvious that Soludo is likely to become the next Governor of Anambra State. For him it hasn’t been an easy journey. In September 2009 he had announced that he would be gunning for the Governorship of Anambra State on the PDP platform. He didn’t make it. On July 17, 2013 he resigned from the PDP and joined the APGA to contest the November 2013 governorship election but he was disqualified by the APGA screening committee. He then endorsed Willie Obiano for the job.
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