Anambra Election: Voters kick against INEC’s ‘No facemask, No voting’ rule

Some voters who were out to vote around 8:30 am were asked to go back and bring their facemasks.

As voting commenced in the Awka South Local of Anambra State, voters have reportedly rejected the instruction by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that voters without face masks won’t be allowed to vote.

The instruction was said to have been issued by INEC’s presiding officer in the area, Ahmed Abdilahi.

According to Punch, some of the voters, who trooped out around 8:30 am to vote were asked to go back and bring their facemasks before they would be allowed to cast their votes.

Irked by this, Chikodi Aghanya, a former member of Anambra State House of Assembly, described INEC’s instruction as ‘rubbish’.

“We can’t take that instruction from you. This is rubbish. How can you ask these old people here to go back to their homes to go and bring facemasks before they will be allowed to vote? If you do that here you will see our true colour,” he said.

Reacting, the Presiding Officer who is a National Youth Service Corps member said, “That was INEC instruction and we will obey it to the letter. We have hand sanitisers here. We have our facemasks on. They should go and have theirs. It’s a simple instruction they must obey.”

The Presiding Officer also told Punch that they were having network challenges to operate some of their tools.