ANAMBRA STATE ASSOCIATION USA (ASA-USA)
Election Monitoring Team Report – 2007 Nigerian Elections.

REPORT Of THE ASA-USA ELECTION MONITORING TEAM TO ANAMBRA
STATE, THE 2007 NIGERIAN ELECTIONS

MEMBERS OF THE TEAM:
Dr. Benjamin Anosike (Head of the team)
Mr. Kingsley Ezenwenyi
Engr. Alex Ike Okeke
Mr. Ikenna Ellis-Ezenekwe.
Consistent with its long-standing credentials and role, its abiding mission, as the established premier Watchdog organization for the people of Anambra State in the Diaspora, The Anambra State Association, U.S.A. (popularly known as ASA-USA), a non-partisan, non-political, umbrella organization of all Anambra indigenes and associations resident in the United States which is dedicated to uncompromising transparency and good governance by ALL public officials in Anambra State, had organized and sponsored, under the distinguished leadership of its pro-active President, Dr. Nwachukwu Anakwenze, a high-powered team of Anambrarians from the United States and dispatched them to Anambra State to join forces with other progressive groups and forces there on the ground to work and to observe and monitor the actual conduct of the elections in the State on an eye-witnessed, first-hand basis.
The team is comprised of the following persons: Dr. Benjamin Anosike, the Chairman of the ASA-USA Constitutional Committee and New York based legal expert, author, and publisher (Head of the monitoring team); Mr. Kingsley Ezenwenyi, member of ASA-USA Elections Committee and expert strategist/organizer in grassroots voting systems; Mr. Ike Alex Okeke, Maryland-based Engineer and Assistant National Publicity Secretary of ASA-USA.; and Mr. Ikenna Ellis-Ezenekwe, Journalist and National Publicity Secretary, ASA-USA.
Primarily, the ASA-USA Monitoring Team was counting on using the Anambra people themselves, there on the ground, and modern technology, to:
• Observe first-hand and monitor the proceedings of the elections state-wide in Anambra State
• Record and report facts and incidents, as and if and when they occurred, during elections.
• Provide real time objective, unbiased, honest coverage and information on the elections via Radio stations, Websites, telephone and TV stations, newspapers, etc
Operating in cooperative conjunction with like-minded Anambra-based NGOs, Civil Society groups, Church groups, business and professional people, town unions, individuals, as well as other domestic election observers and international monitoring groups who are committed to seeing a free and fair elections in our State and in Nigeria, members of the ASA-USA Monitoring Team were deployed primarily in the Awka, Onitsha and Nnewi regions of the State and thus covered most of the vital nerve centers of Anambra State.
THE GOVERNORSHIP & STATE HOUSE  OF ASSEMLY ELECTIONS,
APRIL 14th

ASA-USA Monitors First Seek the “Official” Version from the Source, INEC.
For starters, the ASA-USA Monitoring Team was ticked off by information of very late starts of the elections exercise in various parts of the State.  A two-man team of the team visited the INEC headquarters of the Awka South LGA to speak with Mr. Isaiah Fajobi, the INEC Electoral Officer and head of the INEC office there. Upon arrival at the office at about 12 noon, there was ruckus already brewing there as the ASA-USA Monitors noticed that Mr. Fajobi was still addressing the election returning officers who were to officiate at the elections and were gathered at the lobby of his office. NOTE that this is for an election which Maurice Iwu’s INEC had emphatically stated and advertised would supposedly begin (to have begun) in the State (and throughout Nigeria) by 8 a.m., and to end at 3.p.m prompt. As it turned out, the voting exercise did not ACTUALLY begin in many, in deed most, polling stations throughout the State until anywhere from 12 noon to 2 pm. Even later than that in some areas of the State, and even never at all, in many!

As the INEC’s Mr. Fajobi addressed the Returning Officers at his Awka South LGA office, frustrated voters, as well as a handful of concerned candidates for the elections and political party operatives, began trooping into the INEC building to register their angst and concern over the faulty manner the voting exercise seemed to have begun to develop. Much of the complaints were of the late start and the late delivery of voting materials to the polling booths. Others, who seemed the most vociferous of the lot, angrily complained of the emerging reality that the RESULT FORMS (or Sheets) for the recording of the votes cast were missing and unavailable to the polling officials at the polling boots, while many more others complained of their names missing on the voter register at the polling booths.

INEC’s Awka LGA officer Confirms On Tape: NO Result Sheets Were Provided
INEC’s Isaiah Fajobi, who reacted angrily and somewhat cagey, at first, ordered all the complainants out of his office. However, from the tape recorded response subsequently obtained from Mr. Fajobi by the Monitors, the issues, he said, were being resolved. On the critical RESULTS SHEETS issue, those results sheets, Fajobi pledged, were on their way to their “various destinations.” Fajobi, however, later recanted on this and said that his office had actually not been allotted the results sheets yet from the INEC Head office. He proceeded to indicate that some of the results sheets had been distributed, and that he “will go and ensure that the rest is distributed.” Upon being asked by an Election Monitor whether not having the Results Sheets available would have any effect on the process or outcome of the voting, Fajobi categorically said NO, adding that “it’s [only] after 3pm, after they have counted, I mean sorted the votes, that they  would need the result sheet.” He was then reminded that some of the polling locations were about 3 hours away, whereupon he indicated that “there was no problem.” On the allegations of missing names of eligible voters on the voter register, Fajobi summarily dismissed those as false and difficult to believe.

ASA-USA Monitors First Hear Voters Primary Complaints & Allegations First-hand
To this end, however, throughout the 14th of April day [as well as the 21st), the ASA-USA Monitors made timely visits to many polling stations throughout various regions of Anambra State to verify and investigate, firsthand, the facts of the claims and allegations earlier made by the voters and others. In all, the ASA-USA Monitors personally visited 50 polling stations all over Anambra before the scheduled end of voting struck at 3 p.m., and many more polling stations after 3 p.m. Whereupon, from the hard data and credible evidence gathered in the field on the ground (complete with photographs, tape recordings, notes, names, telephone numbers of INEC officials, of voting operatives, party agents, voters, etc),  the harsh but frightening reality soon became conclusively evident that there was, in fact, clearly a well-structured pattern of gross electoral malfunctions and irregularities – in deed, a clear case of organized electoral fraud -- permeating the day’s entire polling and voting system throughout the State. Most painfully and saddening, those initial but then yet “unproven” complaints and allegations that had earlier been voiced by suspicious voters and others at the Isaiah Fajobi’s Awka South INEC election office, turned out not only to be valid and factual in the end, but even worse, were found to be actually rampant, egregious, and widespread throughout Anambra State.

Late Starts of Voting; Missing Names of Eligible Voters; Frustrated
disenfranchised Voters Go Home Without Voting
Just as we left Mr. Fajobi’s INEC office, at the entrance gate to the premises, we accosted Mr. Anamene Nwokoye, the INEC’s Electoral Supervisor attached to the Amawbia 3 Awka South 2 constituency, and questioned him intensely on the allegations and complaints we had heard from voters and others at Mr. Fajobi’s office. Mr. Nwokoye, visibly concerned himself, bluntly admitted to such irregularities and indicated that he himself was actually at the premises to see Mr. Fajobi about what to do to rectify those complaints. At the Amawbia 3 polling station proper, located in Awka South LGA {near Market Square Eke Amawbia}, ASA-USA Monitors arrived at the scene to find some angry voters sternly confronting the man who was officiating at the polling booth as the Presiding Officer, as the voters pointedly fingered him as being a card-carrying PDP member and current Secretary of the PDP Awka South Transitional Committee. Voters charged that the man was a misfit for his INEC function and had only been placed there by the PDP political machine, not so that he would conduct any credible polling, but to “rig in Andy Uba.” It was now about 12.45 p.m. then. And there were some100 voters lingering around, awaiting the voting exercise to begin. Upon spotting the ASA-USA Monitors decked out in their INEC-issued uniforms bearing the official “foreign observer” inscription, many agitated eligible voters, their INEC-approved voting cards displayed in hand, besieged the Monitors and loudly complained to them that they had been at the station to vote as early as 8 a.m. but had seen no INEC officials in place. Worse still, a good number of the voters who waited it out for the voting exercise to eventually begin, now discovered to their utter chagrin that their names were not listed in the voter’s register. A good many of them told pathetic tales of having been bounced from one polling station to another in search of the right station to be permitted to vote.  They had, in each station, they stated, been told by the polling officials that their names were nowhere to be found on the voters list. Several of them reported personal knowledge of scores (“hundreds”) of other eligible voters whom they said had similar experiences and had long abandoned the effort to vote and gone home in frustration.

Mrs. Rosaline Nweke, a 59 year old grandmother who registered at the Market Square at Eke Amawbia {VIN = 10082701611}, did not have her name listed in the voter’s register at that polling station; rather, she was on her 5th polling station in search of the right place that’ll  have her name, and still counting. Patrick Ajemba, a 57 year old grandfather who also registered at the Market Square at Eke Amawbia {VIN = 10082700153}, was at her 5th station in search of her name on the voter’s register, and still counting. The same were the cases of Innocent Sunny Odum, a 38 year old {VIN = 30101100334} (“over” 5 previous places and still not sure), and Matthew U. Ogbu, a 23 year old {VIN = 30500801172} – both residents of Amawbia. Others at the same polling station who fit the same bill with a valid INEC voter card in hand but unable to vote, included Eluseus Ike (had been at “more than” 5 polling stations by this time), Ogbonnaya Mbam (had been at 3 previous places, and still counting), Ikenna Charles Okafor (at 3 previous places, and still counting), Emma Ikwuani, and Possible Okon (at 5 previous places and still not sure), and Felicia Amazashi.
  
At the St. Matthew’s Catholic Parish Church polling station also located in Amawbia, the situation was no different. Not at all. Here, the voting exercise, though supposed to begin at 8a.m, did not begin till nearly 1 p.m. -- a fact confirmed by the polling station’s two Presiding Officers, Mrs. Chinwe Solibe and Florence Ugwo, who had given the precise time as 12.40 p.m. By then, however, some 300-400 eligible voters who had come on time to vote, had gone home in disgust without voting after having been at the station from 8 a.m., according to many waiting voters on the scene. Ms Solibe and Ms Ugwo, the two INEC Presiding Officers, further confirmed (as virtually every other ones that the Monitors had dealt with in the tour had done before or after them) that they did not have any Result Sheets available to them from INEC, even at that late hour in the day. Many of the voters at the station (St. Matthew’s Catholic Parish Church), more particularly the elderly women, were visibly angry and loudly expressed dismay over the voting difficulties and fault-riddled voting process they encountered. The complaints voiced by many of them mirrored almost exactly the same problems the Monitors had heard elsewhere, namely, the issue of very late start of voting, as well as not having their names on the voters’ register. Still many others, voters as well as agents of the various political parties, complained of being “confused” by the voting process, as they asserted that the ballot sheets were required by the INEC rules, and expected by the voters, to have had the candidates’ photos displayed on them, but that many of the ballot sheets they encountered did not have any pictures on them. There is this one case in point, as merely one example. The case of the Reverend Father of the St. Matthew’s Catholic Church – Rev. Christian Okafor, 34 years old who registered at Ezi Egege NYSC Secretariat in Amawbia {VIN = 30501400148}. As Father Okafor relayed it, to his disappointment and utter surprise, he was to discover that inexplicably his name was not listed in the voters register. In his words, “I am completely disenfranchised.” The same goes for both Veronica Emepue, 54 year old {VIN = 10082700238} and Veronica Ezetu, 36 year old {VIN = 10082700237. Then there were Afam Okonkwo, Prince Chinua, Dije Arinze, Chinenye Nebe (all at the Central School, Ward 2, Amawbia), all of  whom also expressly reported their puzzling  discovery that their names were not included in the voters register, among many teeming others, and thus were not able to vote.

Just Who’s Telling the Truth: The PDP or the Others?
Still at the St. Mathews Catholic Church polling station, being a big station of two full-sized polling booths, several official Party Agents who officially represented each of the candidates vying for the political offices in contest (under INEC rules, each was officially certified to be there by the INEC), were present and in full gear here – Uju E. Okeke, Gloria Odum, and  Theresa Aghanya (agents for AC candidates),  Edith Eze and Grace Nwobu (for APGA candidates ), Nature Ifeany Mba, Vera Ifedua  and Stella Okonkwo (for ANPP), and Ikem Okonkwo, Joy Dijeh, Nnadozie Okonkwo, Ikechukwu Nwagwe, and Michael Okoye (for PDP candidates). A rather interesting occurrence, which is rather quite educative and revealing, took place at this station relating to these party agents.  It happened when an ASA-USA Monitor posed this question to the Party Agents: “when, exactly, did the actual voting commence at this polling station today?” Thereupon, in response, just about every other agent of every party (except for the PDP agents), quickly volunteered that it was at about some few minutes to 1 p.m. But the one agent who spoke for the PDP agents, adamantly persisted, solely and lonely,  that it was much earlier, at about 11.30 a.m., even as agents of almost every other party there (and the voters on queue, as well), were repeatedly emphatic in asserting that it was some 1 hour and 30 minutes later than that! Again, in answer to another question posed by a Monitor, virtually every other agent of all the other contesting political parties there present, was in agreement in expressing the disappointing view that “the election process so far today is not going too well, too many problems.” The LONE exception there who expressed a contrary view, was the agent of the PDP who stated, grinning rather sheepishly, as though merely a mischief-maker who deliberately relished a nasty reaction to a position that he already knew was unpopular or out-of-line and would only elicit an unpleasant response, that “all is going well,” promptly eliciting an overwhelming chorus of hisses and boos from almost all the other party agents.

Voters Go Home In Protest Without Voting: NO Ngige on the Ballot!
At the Ebe Ezimezi village Square, Amawbia, the Presiding Officer of the voting station, Ms Cecelia Ofuonye, stated that the INEC brought in the voting materials only at about 12 noon and that the voting then started only shortly thereafter. At this station, a certain interesting phenomenon, which we were to witness throughout the day in almost every other polling place we visited, occurred. Namely, a good many registered voters who were at the scene to vote, turned around and headed home in anger and disappointment that “the candidate we want, is not on the ballot” – mostly alluding to Chris Ngige, the AC party candidate for the governorship race. Thus, in this station, ASA-USA Monitors were approached by voters named Ukpaka Ezumezu, Innocent Nuagbo and Tome Izuji, among others, who gave precisely that same reason as they hurried out of the voting area to go back home without voting  with their voting cards still in tact.  At the St. Peters Anglican Church Amawbia, Awka (here, Ms Nebo Olisa, the Presiding Officer, and Emma Nweke, her polling Clerk, had confirmed that voting started there at about 1.35 p. m only after they had received the balloting materials), Nathaniel Nwokoye, Mr. P.C. Azubuike and Onema Ugochukwu, among others, were among those who put their voting cards back into their pockets and went home in protest that “no AC candidate for the governorship we came to vote for, was on the ballot.”  Precisely the same thing was to be repeated with Ms Nnenna Mbanugo, a nearby young Nnamdi Azikiwe University student at the Okwukwa Village polling booth, Awka North.

At the polling station at Ebe Enu Orji in Amawbia, the voting exercise did not begin there till after 1 p.m., also. As was the case in all of the previous polling stations visited, a good number of the would-be voters at this location left the station without casting their votes out of frustration after having waited for 5 hours. Many more left after discovering that their names were not on the voters register. To mention just a few specific names, there was Obianuju Okonkwo, 20 year old{VIN = 30116100184} and Uche Nwosu, 32 year old {10045704508} – both of whom registered at Ebe Enu Orji, but then discovered that their names where missing from the voters register when they showed up to vote.

Visit to Police Commissioner; NO Voting Whatsoever In Awka North Areas
  The Election Day debacle reached an explosive and dramatic climax at the Awka North LGA constituency, the result of which was that there was absolutely NO ELECTION whatsoever in that region. If the “elections” in other parts of the area we had visited earlier were only pathetically limited or next to nil, the ELECTIONS in this area were absolutely NIL and NON-EXISTENT, pure and simple. No voting materials or voting officials were either deployed in that area, or the voting materials meant for that area had been burnt down earlier in the day and were never made available. ASA-USA Monitors gathered (and did confirm) that the Central Distribution Center for the Awka North LGA, located at Achalla, had been burnt down earlier in the day by angry protesting citizens, thus essentially crippling the election machinery and operation for that area. Earlier, while seated at the office of the State Police Commissioner to interview the Commissioner, ASA-USA Monitors briefly interrogated the man who had been arrested and brought there by the police as the alleged culprit for the arson, an APGA State of Assembly candidate for the area by the name Shedrack Anakwuo. But the Commissioner’s aides, apparently concerned lest the man spilled some undesired election-related cankerworms to the ASA-USA Monitors, abruptly abrogated the exchanges, but not before the “suspect” had strongly protested his innocence to the accusation and attributed his arrest to “just a simple hatched job by agents of the PDP.” 

The Monitors then proceeded to visit various communities in Awka North LGA, thereupon it soon became conclusively confirmed that, actually, absolutely NO ELECTIONS whatsoever took place in that region. At the Amansi polling station, a town within the locality of Awka North, the evidence of no election was vividly apparent. For one thing, there were no INEC polling stations set up or open, or INEC officials present, in that whole area – not in Okwukwa, not in Eziogboh primary school or Amaowelle polling stations. The same was the case for the remainder of the communities in Awka North. Angry area voters, including Sunday Nwankwo, Linus Ubah, and others at Okwukwa, eagerly confirmed to the Monitors that they could not exercise their voting rights as no voting booths had opened or operated. In deed, at about 4.03 p.m. – a time quite past the 4 p.m. mark that all voting was supposed to have ended -- some determined voters, including one Mr. Emma Chukwuma, were found by the ASA-USA Monitors still lingering around in the mere hope that the INEC officials would still show up to enable them cast their treasured votes. Upon being alerted of the Monitors’ presence by other equally disgusted would-be area voters, Chief Linus Okafor, a prominent Amansi resident, visibly angered, frustrated and flushed, sought out the Monitors to vehemently register his complaints. “Monitors from America?,” he inquired.  Promptly reassured, Chief Okafor continued: “I can take you to any place in this area. There were never any elections any place, if you want.  As you yourself can see even now, not even a single polling station is open. N o INEC voting agents or materials were brought in, in this whole area. The story is the same for everybody throughout. Please be sure to report this.”  

Angry University Professors and Voters; Ballot Box Burning
As confirmed by ASA-USA Monitors and others in the areas, there were also many cases of ballot boxes being physically burnt by frustrated voters across Anambra State – in Ukpor, Onitsha, Awka  North, Aniocha, Abagana, Ajali and others. One of the many ballot burning incidents evidenced firsthand by ASA-USA Monitors, occurred at the Ahocol Phase 2 – Center 10. This polling center is located nearby the Nnamdi Azikiwe University in the Awka North area, and has many of the school’s lecturers registered there as voters. Many of these “enlightened” voters had for several hours long been caught up in the angst of the voting Results Sheets not having been delivered to the polling station as had been promised by the end of the polling. Among the agitated professors who visibly protested that state of affairs, were Prof. Nkolika Obianyo of the Department of Political Science, Prof. Emeka Ezeonu (Dept. of Applied Science), Dr. Godwin Onu (Department of Political Science), and Dr. C.A.C. Umezurike (Research). Thus, as many of these professors and voters who had cast their votes stood by to watch the counting and collation of the votes to commence, they watched in awe as two men suddenly drove up in a vehicle and then set the day’s ballot box on fire – thus destroying the entire votes cast at that station. (NOTE: Nonetheless, the INEC, by the way, still “declared” normal voting for these areas, regardless, and “announced” lofty voting figures and results for them.)

Reached later by an ASA-USA Monitor a few days after the April 14th election, Professors Godwin Onu and C.A.C. Umezurike, the area’s voters who also indicated that they were members of the Nigeria Political Science Association (NPSA), South Eastern Chapter, promptly volunteered the information that, from what they and their other NPSA members had observed and witnessed of the elections exercise, “No elections were held across the federation, particularly in the South-Eastern part of Nigeria, due to the fact that electoral materials were either not supplied at all or were not accompanied with result sheets.” They added that “The results announced by INEC did not have any bearing with reality,” in that “there were strong indications that electoral results were written before the date of the election [and that] the results, as announced, were written to favor candidates of the ruling party [PDP]…using the state security agencies, including the military and the police, to intimidate the electorate.”

Late Voting, No Voting Materials at Njikoka, Nnobi, Awka Etiti, Adazi Enu, Adazi-Enu, and other Areas
In each of the above areas, what the Monitors witnessed concerning the elections exercise were by no means any different. At the Njikoka LGA, when the ASA-USA Monitors arrived on the scene to record the day’s voting events, it was 10 a.m., but no election activities were taking place. By INEC’s announced official scheduling, the voting was supposed to have started some two hours earlier – at 8 a.m. A crowd of intending voters, clearly confused and weary, angrily voiced concern and worries, asserting that they had not been able to vote because no polling booth were open nor any polling officials in place to process their votes. Upon prompt inquiry with the Electoral Officer in charge, Mr. N. Opara, he stated that the Awka INEC head office had not provided his office with the “complete materials” for the full conduct of the elections for his area. He revealed that he had made a timely report of the problem of the election material shortage to his INEC State headquarters at Awka, and that all he now had available at hand were materials that he estimated would only suffice for some “60 percent of the registered voters” for his area, adding that his Awka INEC headquarters merely directed him to work with what he had at hand, pending further delivery of the remaining materials later in the day. One area voter among the crowd of waiting voters, Dr. George Okpagu, clearly fuming and exercised at the existing obvious voting debacle, bluntly charged that “no proper condition for the election has been met by the INEC.” Okpagu pointed to the large crowd of waiting voters who milled around at the place in an obviously tensed and disgusted mood, as he spoke of a “general dissatisfaction” among the electorate assembled there.  According to Okpagu, the root cause of the developing voting problems, was that he had discovered that the more capable polling agents and officials who had been trained by INEC to conduct the polling, had been substituted by INEC with less able persons who had no apparent training or preparation for the voting exercise.

Enthusiastic Voters Frustrations at Nnobi, Awka Etiti, Adazi Unu, Adazi Ani
ASA-USA Monitors traveled along the main roads leading from places in Njikoka, Nnobi, Awka Etiti, Adazi Unu, Adazi Ani, to Nnewi, going in search of operating polling stations till they got to Nnewi. There were hardly any polling stations which were to be found in these areas up to that point where any voting was physically taking place on this supposed April 14th special “elections day” in Anambra State. In each of the polling stations in these places, however, the voter turn out was found to be highly commendable, in deed, impressive; anxious Anambra voters trooped out of their homes quite early in the hundreds and thousands, clearly eager and patiently waiting in line to cast their votes. One could clearly see, from the faces and posture of the waiting teeming electorate, that they were definitely intent on making a “political statement” on this day – a clear statement that, to these voters, the one-of-a-life-time opportunity of their dreams and prayers, has finally arrived once again for them to pick a leadership of their own choosing whom they trust would “deliver” for them, who they trust would finally lead them to that political promised land of their dreams. But the story, unfortunately, was often disappointingly the same for these Anambra voters: NO INEC OFFICIALS AROUND, NO MATERIALS WITH WHICH TO CONDUCT THE VOTING OR TO RECORD THE VOTING RESULTS.  Clearly, with this state of affairs, one does not need a psychic to decipher or report the depth of frustration and disenchantment that soon rent the erstwhile confident comportment and bright faces of these proud Anambra voters, as hope quickly dissipated into anger, and optimism quickly degenerated into desperation in the ensuing orgy of gross electoral failures and disappointment that enveloped the failed Anambra electorate once again.

Ohaneze President Assesses the Voting to ASA-USA Monitors At Nnewi – No Voting Stations Open.
At Anambra’s famed commercial, industrial town, Nnewi, ASA-USA Monitors were chagrined and befuddled upon getting there only to find that NO polling whatsoever, even at 10:05 a.m., had commenced. In a brief interview at about 10.30 a.m. with Dr. Dozie Ikedife, the President of the Ohaneze Ndigbo, who is a local medical practitioner and area voter, the Ohaneze President told the ASA-USA Monitors of his own personal experiences so far in the day in trying to vote. He himself had gone out to his polling station to cast his vote earlier, he said, but he could not because no polling had started in that station. And, he added, he had taken the opportunity to go around different wards in Nnewi to ascertain how the voting was going, but had been awe-struck to discover that no voting had been commenced anywhere he had visited or inquired about in the whole of Nnewi.  At the St. Lawrence polling station in Osumenyi in the Nnewi South LGA, the time was 10:57 a.m., but no voting was yet in progress there. ASA-USA Monitors found here the same thing they had found elsewhere: the intending voters, eager and anxious to vote, were now despairing, as they hopelessly loitered around the grounds muttering angry complaints while waiting for the INEC hopefully to commence the voting operations. In the town of Ezinitife at the Awor Primary School and Awor Hall polling stations, it was now 11:25 a.m. and 11:35 a.m., respectively. The story was exactly the same – no INEC polling officers were yet present. The frustrated voters were raining insults on INEC and on “Andy Uba.” At the Amakom polling station in Osumenyi at 12:02 p.m., the INEC polling officers were still no where to be found. The same was further the case at the Ebenator, Amichi, towns and others.

Reported “Ballot Stuffing” at Nnewi & Environs
Still at Nnewi, amidst strong pervasive rumors swirling around among many of  the people that certain local and area political operatives (among the prominent names bandied around, were known high-level PDP personalities and Andy Uba associates like Annie Okonkwo, Emeka Offor, Igwe Promise Eze of Umunya, Ifeanyi Enemchukwu, Ifeanyi Okoye, among others) were “stuffing the ballot boxes” and already “writing the results” at their residences, the observers spoke with one Mr. Jonathan Ekezie, a Mercedes 608 Driver. According to Mr. Ekezie, the INEC Officials had rented some seventeen 608 Buses, including his own, and had filled them with election materials and directed them to take them to certain designated locations (not disclosed then) in the State. But, he related, an angry local crowd had attacked the vehicles and deflated the tires of many of them, adding that amidst the confusion, the INEC officials, in concert with the Police, had arrested an Nnewi indigene, Mr. Samuel Ojukwu, and whisked him away to an unknown destination as at the report time.

At Utuh, Ukpor, Nnewi South, No Voting Stations Open
At the Utuh town in the Nnewi South LGA, in the Utuh Central School polling station there which is also the area’s voting “Collection Center,” it was now 12:30 p.m. Yet, no voting had started there. Visibly dejected waiting voters were now clearly running out of patience or further tolerance and swamped the ASA-USA Monitors upon spotting them, voicing to them their resentment at the emerging reality that “Obasanjo and the Uba family have once again denied us democracy and our rights of being Nigerians,” as one of the protesting voters put it. At the Ukpor town, it was as though the entire adult population of the whole of the Nnewi South LGA were gathered at the INEC office there. Why so? Upon inquiry, the Monitors found that the Ukpor people having waited all morning for the area’s polling stations to open, but to no avail,  the people had then resolved to get themselves to the INEC zonal office of Ukpor figuring that they might find a better opportunity at that office to exercise their voting rights. Interviewed at the Ukpor INEC office, the polling officers spoken to, told the Monitors that the reason they had not been able to set up voting operations at their various polling stations, was primarily because they did not have the means of transportation to get to their various polling stations and that their Electoral Officer was a no-show at the office or locations. (NOTE: This Ukpor INEC office was the same one which was later to be set afire by angry disenfranchised voters who stormed the office and burned it down, accompanied by the destruction of property and some tragic loss of lives!)

First Sign of Actual Voting Met in Ojoto, then Onitsha, etc, Very Late in the Day
Ojoto, at the Enuonwu Central Primary School polling station there, was the very FIRST place the ASA-USA Monitors saw any actual voting taking place for the day (April 14th 2007), on their way back coming all the way from Nnewi.  Mr. Daniel C. Nwizu, the INEC Presiding polling Officer of the station, told the Monitors that he had been compelled to commence the voting quite late at the time he did, which was at about 2 p.m., by circumstances, explaining that this was when he finally received the voting materials from INEC, but stated that he was not provided with the Result Sheets, however. Some 30 angry anxious voters (among them L.C. Anisgbo, D.N. Amah, and others), rushed to the Monitors, with their INEC voting cards displayed in hand, to complain that they were totally out of luck and were unable to cast their votes because their names could not be located on the voters’ register.

Near Riot by Voters at Onitsha as Monitors Uncover Lack of Result Sheets
The Monitors then proceeded towards Onitsha. No further voting was observed, however, by the Monitors in any polling stations along the way from Ojoto till Onitsha. At the Onitsha township, at the Ezenwa/New Market Road polling station, the Monitors were informed by Mr. Emeka Austin Nnorom and Kwazu Chinweuba, the Presiding Officers at the stations, that voting had started there at 2:15 p.m.  At first, upon inquiry, the Presiding Officers first told the Monitors that their station had been provided by INEC with what they thought to be the Result Sheets and had it available for use at the station. However, upon a closer examination of the document, the Monitors were able to confirm to the officers that the document was not a Result Sheet, but actually an INEC form titled, “STATEMENT OF UNUSED AND SPOILT BALLOTS FORM.”  This rather sudden but apparently unanticipated discomforting revelation unravelled by the ASA-USA Monitors promptly elicited a near-riotous reaction from the now almost totally infuriated voting crowd. Next, at the St. John’s School polling station, the story was one of the same old, now-familiar litanies of voting woes and voter disappointment. Mr. Charles Okoye, the Presiding Officer, and Mary Jane Asapua, the Voting Clerk, told the Monitors the now-familiar tale that the voting materials did not arrive at their station till 1:30 p.m., and then confirmed that they did not have available the Results Sheets. Several voters (Ejike O. Mgbodile, F.I. Ibekwe, L.O. Ajaego, and B. Emeka, among others) made the familiar complaint that they had been unable to use their INEC-issued voter cards in order to vote because their names were no where to be found on the voter register.

No Voting Materials & No Voting at DMGS Onitsha Even By the End of Voting Time
At the Dennis Memorial Grammar School (DMGS) polling station, even as at 3p.m. (the official end of the INEC voting period) when the ASA-USA Monitors reached there, Charles Chukwuka, the Presiding Officer, confirmed to the Monitors that he was yet to receive any voting materials for his station and added that the voters who had earlier filled up the grounds in order to vote, had all gone home in anger and disappointed without being able to cast their votes. At the CKC Onitsha voting station, the Monitors observed that many voters were still around but refused to vote, giving  the reason that the station voting officials could not show them that they had any INEC Result Sheets upon which their votes would be recorded if they were to vote. Many of them furiously argued that since their votes would not be recorded, any vote by them would be “useless” therefore, any way, and so why bother to vote.

Frustrated  Disenfranchised Voters Burn Down INEC Office of Onitsha North
While at the CKC Onitsha voting station, ASA-USA Monitors got the information that the INEC office in Onitsha North LGA had been set ablaze by angry voters. On getting to the scene, police men there gave the Monitors the police version of events stating that some men had thrown a petroleum bomb into the INEC office from across the security fence surrounding the building to set it ablaze. According to Frank Okiwe, an INEC officer, it was the police that had helped to recover the voting materials from destruction in the blaze, the salvaged material of which, it was said, were now packed in a HIACE van. However, in contradiction to the accounts by the INEC and the Police, Mr. Benjamin Agu, the Chief Security Officer of the INEC office, stated to the Monitors that the fire was set by some six men who, he said, had come through the gate to set the building on fire.
THE PRESIDENTIAL & NATIONAL HOUSE  OF ASSEMLY ELECTIONS, APRIL 21st 2007
Very Late Starts of the Elections; Lack of Ballot Materials at Stations
For the work of the ASA-USA Monitoring Team in regard to the Presidential and National House of Assembly races of April 21st, a good deal of the observations work done for those particular elections were recorded on video tape with a running narrative of the occurrences and events of the polling. Those tapes are, of course, available for our purposes and “documentation.”  Summed up, however, by way of an overview of the April 21st election day, we would just put it this way: there were really NO ELECTIONS on that day, as well, in Anambra state; NONE in all the towns our ASA-USA Monitoring Team visited.

For this 21st April election, the polls were advertised by INEC to commence at 10a.m., and to end at 5p.m. But, from information confirmed to the Monitors by the INEC officials at the Awka Headquarters, balloting materials did not leave the INEC headquarters in AWKA till 2p.m. For example, when a team of two ASA-USA Monitors visited the INEC State headquarters (its Distribution office) at Awka, it was at about 11.30a.m. Yet, even at that point, the Monitors only met the INEC staff still sorting out the voting materials in lots to be sent out to the various polling stations, far and near, in each of the 30 LGAs around the State.

An ASA-USA Monitor visited the INEC headquarters of the Awka South LGA asking to speak with Mr. Isaiah Fajobi, the man who the Monitors had met on April 14th, the governorship elections day, as the then sitting INEC Electoral Officer and head of that INEC office. It was 1.10 p.m. at this point. There was a climate of somewhat confused and unsettled state of affairs in the office as the INEC staff were engaged in sorting out what ever material there were that they had at hand, into the different slots destined for distributions to polling stations in the LG area. The Monitor asked to speak with Mr. Fajobi, believing that he was still the Electoral Officer in place. However, one woman, who could only give her name only after a good deal of reluctance and prodding as “Mrs. Okonkwo,” stated that Mr. Fajobi had since been transferred to another INEC office but that the new man who replaced him (she could only give the new man’s name as HENRY, either out of not remembering his full name or being reluctant to give it) had been away to the INEC headquarters “to collect the remainder of the voting materials that we are still missing here.” [NOTE that this is for a (federal) election which Maurice Iwu’s INEC had emphatically stated and advertised to every one would supposedly begin (to have begun) in the State (and throughout Nigeria) by 10a.m., and to end at 5p.m prompt. As it turned out, the voting exercise in respect to these FEDERAL elections, as well, did not ACTUALLY begin in many; in deed most, polling stations throughout the State until anywhere from 2:30p.m to 3pm. Even later than that in some areas of the State, and even never at all, in many!

Lacking the Result Sheets, INEC’S Officials Describe How they recorded the results at the Previous April 14th Elections
At the St. Peters Anglican Church, Amawbia 2, near Awka, the Monitor met Mrs. Nebo Olisa, the same Presiding Officer who the monitors had visited with there at the April 14th 2007 elections the previous Saturday. It was now 11 40 a.m. Some 40 voters were gathered there in the two polling stations there, but Mrs. Olisa indicated that she could not yet commence the voting because no balloting materials had yet been brought by INEC. At a visit later in the day to the station, Mrs. Olisa stated that the day’s voting eventually started at her station at 3.05 p.m. Mrs. Olisa was questioned by the Monitor concerning the April 14th voting the previous week She was asked whether her station did eventually receive the Result Sheets from INEC at the end of the voting on the April 14th elections, as she had told the Monitors on their April 14th visit with her that the INEC had promised. Mrs. Olisa said she never, in fact, did receive the Results Sheets after all. And how, then, did she record the votes cast in her station on the April 14th election, she was asked? She stated that she “used one of the Forms, the one they wrote ‘nominated candidates’,” in doing it. She merely wrote down the counted votes on that form, and submitted it to the INEC agents, she said. Did she sign it, she was asked? And she said, ‘no.’ And did the agents of the political parties present there “countersign” the form for authentication purposes, as is mandated by the INEC rules? And were they given a photocopy of the (presumably signed and countersigned) form for their own records and future reference? Again, Mrs. Nebo Olisa’s answer were ‘no’ to both questions, as she added that she could not give copies of the form to the party agents because “it was only one copy” of the form that she had available, and no copies beyond that. A similar account was given at the Ebe Ezimezi Village Square polling station, Amawbia, by Cecilia Ofuonye, the Presiding Officer, and her female polling Clerk. They confirmed that they had received no Results Sheets at the end of the polling on the April 14th elections, and therefore recorded the votes cast only on a “writing sheet of paper” improvised for them on the spot. 

General Voter Apathy; Scanty Crowds at the Voting Stations; Missing INEC Officials  
At the Central School Amawbia II polling station, Mrs. Esther Obiano and Mr. Chukwuma Nwafor, the Presiding Officers (there were 2 polling units in this Station), told the ASA-USA Monitors (amidst other foreign observers also there covering the elections from the EU and a camera crew from the local press), that at 11.48 a.m. the voting had not yet started because the voting materials were yet to arrive from the INEC. Mr. Nwafor, briefly surveying the scanty crowd at his station which seemed almost deserted, added, “they [the voters] have not been coming because they have not seen any (voting) material or people around.” One particularly colorful but aggressive party agent on the scene for the APGA, Mrs. Uzoamaka Anatagu (she repeatedly insisted that she be addressed with a “Mrs.”), demanded, amidst the glare of the cameras, to be heard by the Monitors. She vehemently voiced her anger at the voters being thwarted “again from exercising our rights to vote for whom we want to vote for, like they did last Saturday [April 14th] in the governorship elections.” She added, with a tinge of exasperation, “These people have taken already more than the owner of the goods will know.”  It was the same story at Ward 2 polling station, Okagbue Primary School in Edegbenmini Village, Nwafia town. Here, for a Station that has 2 polling booths (booths 11 & 12), there was only the Polling Clerk for just one booth (11), Mr. Chinedu Nweke, present at 12.10 a.m. as the only INEC officiating crew. The two Presiding Officers of the station for INEC, were still not available then. And, of course, no voting had yet started. What is more, demonstrating the general apathy of the day the Monitors observed virtually everywhere, of the about 8 people who were gathered there, there was no one who was there who was a voter –  some 3 of them were party agents, 3 persons were observers from other observer organizations, etc.  At the Uruogwe Village voting station, Enugwu-Ukwu at the Igwe’s Palace, Ms Jane Muogbo (with one voter observed there) told the Monitors that no voting had started because no voting materials were yet at hand. It was 12.30 p.m.then. Next, at the Umuokpu Village, Awka’s St. Paul’s Anglican Church, there was an unusually huge crowd of voters (the voters themselves severally estimated it to be between 1,500 to 2,000 persons) impatiently waiting for some voting to commence. It was 2.55 p.m. The huge crowd complained, in an increasingly exasperating, restive chorus, that no voting had started and that no INEC officials or voting materials had yet been sighted at the station. 

Voters, Despairing from the April 14th Election, Stay Home on the April 21st
Election
At the Awka North LGA, at the Amansi Village, Monitors encountered a major reason given repeatedly by voters in many of the places they visited as the reason why they were staying out of the voting booth on this April 21st elections. Onyedika Umoh, a registered voter with his voting card in hand, stated that he was not “keen to go to the voting place today,” because, he said, “where is the one people voted last Saturday?”  However, upon further exploration of several polling stations in the area, the Monitors found that there was not even one polling station that was open, any way,  in any community in that whole area – not in Achalla, its capital, not  in Okwukwa, not in Eziogboh primary school, or in the Amaowelle polling stations. It was 4.17 p.m. when the Monitors last left the area with no voting whatsoever seen.

No Voting In the Umunya, Onitsha, Ekwusigo, Ihiala, Nnewi, Nnobi areas
 With a video camera in hand and a running narrative of the day’s events, two ASA-USA Monitors followed the main roads to visit various polling stations located in the above captioned LGAs and towns to observe the anticipated elections of April 21st in Anambra State. Suffice to say, however, that most regrettably, No voting of any kind was found in any of these communities even late into the evening. At Ihiala, for example, the LGA Chairman told the Monitors that he could not possibly imagine any voting still taking place at that hour, since the voting materials had arrived only after 4p.m.

In short, just like the gubernatorial elections of April 14th before it, there was also simply no election in Anambra State as scheduled, for the Presidential and National House elections of April 21st.
SUMMARY
In a word, summed up very simply, based purely upon the hard facts and objective evidence we personally saw and witnessed on the ground in Anambra State, what we physically “saw” and witnessed on April 21st 2007 (as well as the 14th), was simply that THERE REALLY WERE NO ELECTIONS, pure and simple. Rather, what we saw and witnessed – first hand – on the above dates in Anambra State, was a cruel hoax and sham of a democratic election that was advertised and promised, but was not delivered or even truly attempted by its (INEC) organizers; an over-pretentious electoral exercise whose purported aim (at least as propagated and advertised by its organizers), so woefully fell short of even the most basic, most rudimentary and minimal standards required of a genuine, credible democratic election, that it was, in one word, merely a NON-ELECTION event. Put simply, for that very particular phenomenon that we had personally witnessed and observed in Anambra State on those two fateful April 2007 days to even begin to rise up to the most minimal threshold as to be called an “election” (a democratic “election”), a wholesale RE-DEFINITION of that long-standing, highly sacrosanct terminology of modern political theory, as we know it, would have to be undertaken anew by political scientists and the civic experts of democracy the world over, and its underlying fundamental meaning and concept clearly overhauled anew completely, from top to bottom!
The BOTTOM LINE: CONCLUSIVE ASSESSMENT: There were actually just NO elections on April 21st and/or the 14thst of 2007 at least in Anambra State; NONE were conducted there, and NONE were held therein
 
This REPORT is herewith respectfully submitted to the ASA-USA, its Executive and membership, this day for and on behalf of the ASA-USA Monitoring Team.