Anambra Election: Total cancellation not possible – INEC

Professor Attahiru Jega

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC had on Monday reacted to the call by some political parties in Anambra states for a total cancellation of the last Saturday’s controversial Anambra election.

Recall that the Commission has been asked by the All Progressives Congress, Labour Party and the PDP to totally cancel the controversial election, after they had noticed some obvious irregularities in the election.

But INEC has argued that since the Chief Returning Officer, Prof. James Epoke, had announced the results, INEC lacks the power to cancel the entire result.

He said, “by law, those results are now beyond the purview of INEC to invalidate. Only the courts have that power now to do so,” Mr. Kayode Idowu, the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, had told The Punch in Abuja.

Idowu had opined that having declared the election inconclusive, all that “the Commission can do is to conduct a supplementary election so that the CRO can make a return.”

He explained that INEC was “ awaiting the return of field officers, who went for the election so that every report obtained , especially concerning logistical issues, could be painstakingly scrutinised.”

He said that another date for the supplementary election would be fixed after field officers return.

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