Anambra's flawed Gubernatorial Election: INEC's test case for 2015 polls?

It is no longer news that last Saturday's gubernatorial election in Anambra state, an election expected to test INEC's readiness and competence to conduct controversy-free polls in 2015, fell far short of expectations. In fact, if the election was indeed a test for INEC, the nation's election regulator and organizer failed woefully

The gubernatorial election mimicked the 2015 elections in many ways: For instance, there were 3 strong parties and candidates, the APC (Chris Ngige), APGA (Willie Obiano), and PDP (Ifeanyi Ubah), the incumbent party had been in power for years, and the electorate was well informed. Furthermore, Anambra is a fairly populous state, which meant that the ability of INEC to coordinate logistics was always going to be better tested than it would have been if the election was in a smaller state like Osun. Finally, the fact that Anambra was the only state holding elections meant that enough attention was focussed on it, a scenario that is likely to be present in 2015 as well.

Anambra is a test case amongst the 36 states...it is clear that even though INEC has put all resources in terms of logistics, security, voters constituencies in place for the Election....yet reports showed elections held were not free n fair, coupled with late arrival of election materials and missing names in voters registers where original registration was made by voters..this shows when its time for the 36 states in 2015, these irregularities shall repeat itself on a larger scale. One of the peculiar problem Electorates have with INEC is the allegations of double registration by some people, a problem INEC hs been unable to solve since 1999.

From the look of things, INEC failed it its responsibility of conducting a free, fair, and representative election in Anambra state, and this does not bode well for the all-important 2015 general elections. The least INEC can do to redeem her image is to conduct fresh elections in a more effective manner, make sure that the mistakes made in Anambra are not repeated in Osun  come January next year 2014, and develop their logistics system in preparation for the 2015 elections.