About 628 voting units in many parts of Anambra State are yet to be supplied with the materials for the exercise, although the resident electoral commissioner expressed the hope that the affected areas would get the materials by today.
Addressing reporters in his office yesterday, Onukaogu said when he started receiving the threats, he reported to the state commissioner of police who, he added, had given him additional policemen to guard both his house and office.
“One of the text messages said that I should consider myself and my entire family dead if his people fail to participate in the registration. I don’t blame them for threatening my life because I understand their feeling.
“Somebody even accused me in his text message that I sold the machines and wanted me to confess. I know that the problem many have is due to the mistrust they have about INEC over the years and they still believe that it is the same type of INEC that is operating now.
“I admit that I have failed woefully to meet their expectations regarding the on-going registration, but what has been happening is not by design. I apologize to the people of this state for what is happening and they should understand that I sincerely wanted to do the best for them, but something I could not control happened,” he said.
The resident commissioner explained that of the 4900 Direct Data Capturing, DDC, machines expected to be supplied to Anambra State by three companies, one of them, which is expected to supply 805 machines, has not brought even a single unit to date.
According to him, one of the problems was that 73 laptops brought crashed, and have, however, been replaced.
Meanwhile, INEC said that it had discovered four voters’ registration centres in a deep forest at Nteje in Oyi local government area of the state.
The Deputy Governor of the state, Mr. Emeka Sibeudu, and the State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Chukwuemeka Onukogu, led the team that made the discovery, following security reports made available to the governor, Mr. Peter Obi.
The REC said it was painful to discover four centres serving nobody in the middle of a thick forest when there were not enough machines for potential voters in places such as Awka, Onitsha, Nnewi, Adazi, Agulu and others.
The centres, which took 40 minutes drive from the nearest residential areas, are located within the vicinity of a shrine lying 15 kilometers from the town. The registration officers, mainly corps members, sat idly, looking at the machines, with virtually no registrants in sight when the REC and deputy governor arrived.
The deputy governor who expressed shock at the discovery said : “We have shortfalls in machines, but in the forest here, there are four machines lying idle. All the people we met here are not up to 10. But if you go to some other places, you will find thousands of people waiting to be registered. This, I can assure you, is part of the rascality of the past which the present government under Mr. Peter Obi is trying hard to stamp out of the State.” He described such registration centres as what people used to perpetuate electoral frauds.
In his own reaction, the REC said, “I have heard of floating/flying polling booths. Today I have seen one. I am sad that there are four machines wasting here, whereas there are no machines in Onitsha, Eke Awka, Ozubulu, Nnewi and parts of Anaocha where thousands of people are waiting to be registered.”
He said the four centres put together had registered only about 200 voters since the exercise started 10 days ago, when the same machines would have registered several thousands had they been located in densely populated areas.
He said the irregular location of the centres also posed grave risk to the registration officers and the machines.
“How will I evacuate men and machines in the event of danger?” he queried and alleged that the centres must have been secured by a top politician from the area.
He redeployed three of the machines and added that he would need to meet with the registration officials on the matter in his office.
Onukogu said he was constrained by the fact that the “floating registration centres” deep in the forest were documented from the Abuja headquarters of INEC and assured it would be corrected. “This center has been in existence since 1999 and one could imagine what they had been using them for,” he said.
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