In a post mortem of Anambra’s recent poll, David-Chyddy Eleke looks at how the governorship election went, the actions of the winner, reactions of the losers and how Anambra people are taking it entirely.
Anambra State is one of the states that operates an off cycle election in Nigeria. These developments are mainly because of election victories nullified by courts, leading to a fresh conduct. Anambra was the first to pull these through in 2006, leading to the first off cycle election in 2010, and since then, other states have followed. They include Bayelsa, Edo, Ekiti, Kogi, Ondo, Osun and Imo States.
It was not surprising that the Anambra election drew attention nationwide. First was that it was one of the off cycle elections, but most important reason was that it came at a time that the nation had just been given a new chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission INEC), Prof. Joash Ojo Amupitan, after what was loudly adjudged an abysmal outing of the commission under his predecessor, Prof Yakub Mahmoud in 2023, and so everyone was eager to see the performance of the new INEC boss.