Anambra: How INEC’s machines counted votes but erased dignity

BY LEKAN OLAYIWOLA

Voter apathy in Nigeria is often reduced to a statistic, but in Anambra, it reveals a deeper crisis: a breakdown of the tacit contract between citizens and institutions. This is relational trauma. People withdraw not out of indifference, but because the system has repeatedly failed to see, hear, and value them.

In the wake of the November 2025 Anambra gubernatorial election, a deep civic grief lingers: repeated exclusion, delayed recognition, and the emotional toll of a democracy that counts votes more than it values citizens. Across the state, many voters turned up, but some reports show they left feeling unseen.

In Awka, media observers noted delayed starts at polling units and what they described as a sense of futility among young women. In Onitsha, election monitors recorded equipment failures and missing ballots. In Nnewi, a vendor spoke of weighing the cost of lost income against the right to vote.

The Texture of Disengagement

When raw numbers meet lived experience, patterns of exclusion emerge. During the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise from July 8–20, 2025, INEC recorded 168,187 new registrants. Of these, 58% were female (97,832) and 53.97% aged 18–34 (90,763). On paper, youth and women are engaging. In practice, many still felt their voices marginalised, their votes diluted, their participation a performative act rather than an expression of agency.

Historical turnout data illustrate the decline in relational legitimacy: In 2013, 25.5% (413,005 valid votes from 1,770,125 registered). In 2017, 20.1% (422,314 of 2,364,134) and by 2021, 10.27% (241,523 of 2,466,638) cast valid votes. As for 2025, early reports from polling units in Awka, Onitsha, and Nnewi indicate low turnout, with many units seeing only a handful of voters by midday.

Even as registration numbers climb, the emotional connection remains fragile. Citizens weigh the costs of participation against anticipated neglect. The woman vendor in Nnewi, walking back home from the polling unit, wondered whether enduring a day’s loss of income was validated by recognition or simply logged as a vote. The procedural machinery acknowledged her existence, but did the system acknowledge her dignity?

Apathy as a Pattern of Civic Grief

Informal conversations across wards reveal consistent patterns. The youth speak of campaigns promising change but delivering procedural gestures without relational acknowledgement. Women recount the tension between domestic responsibilities and long queues. Older voters carry the memory of electoral violence or mismanagement.

Late staffing, recalibrated machines, and opaque complaint resolution are not just a glitch, but a ritual of exclusion. Participation becomes a negotiation between effort and dignity. Apathy, therefore, is protective withdrawal, an embodied signal of disappointment and scepticism. This is not a flaw in citizens, but as a diagnostic marker of systemic failure, a civic autopsy of relational wounds that the numbers alone cannot capture.

INEC: Logistics without Legitimacy

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) often touts procedural success, including ballots distributed, registers updated, votes counted. Ahead of the November 8, 2025, off-cycle governorship election, INEC reported a final register of 2,802,790 eligible voters in Anambra, of whom 2,769,137 (98.8%) had collected Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs). These figures suggest administrative competence. But a deeper question is whether procedural coverage amounts to emotional inclusion.

INEC itself noted that “the greatest enemy to Anambra’s democracy is not just external violence but voter apathy,” underscoring that logistical efficiency alone cannot ensure relational trust. In Onitsha, voters arrived early but experienced delays as staff recalibrated accreditation machines and managed lists. While all voters were eventually processed, the experience highlighted the gap between procedural success and the sense of being fully acknowledged. High registration and PVC collection demonstrate administrative capacity, yet whether citizens feel dignified remains uneven.

Listening as Civic Intervention

Across markets, youth centres, schools, and churches in Anambra, citizens’ voices reveal diagnostic signals invisible to conventional observers. The elderly fear mobility challenges; women weigh domestic labour against long queues; youth articulate cynicism rooted in repeated unfulfilled promises. These are active experiences of exclusion, not passive disinterest.

Strategic listening translates into responsive action: polling units located closer to market clusters, staff trained in empathetic communication, and procedures explained in local languages. Each acknowledgement communicates respect, rebuilding relational trust. Citizens are co-creators in democratic repair, their narratives shaping the architecture of inclusion.

Rebuilding Emotional Infrastructure

Elections are not mechanical exercises; they are relational systems measuring trust, dignity, and inclusion. Emotional infrastructure (procedures that account for citizen time, safety, and effort) is as critical as ballots and accreditation machines.

Imagine officials greeting voters, acknowledging waiting times, offering guidance in local dialects. Imagine participatory forums where past grievances are recorded, integrated, and acted upon. Mapping polling units by access difficulty, waiting time, and emotional exclusion transforms administrative logistics into relational intelligence.

PVC collection may be high—98.8% in Anambra—but without relational recognition, such success risks being procedural theatre rather than democratic repair. The challenge for INEC is not only to deliver logistics but to restore dignity and agency at the heart of participation.

Healing Democracy beyond Turnout

True democratic resilience is measured not by numbers alone, but by the quality of citizen-institution relationships. Turnout becomes a lagging indicator of trust restored. When youth in Awka feel their votes have weight, or the vendor in Onitsha feels recognized, participation becomes empowered, not obligatory.

The historical slide from 25.5% to 10.27% turnout reflects systemic relational collapse, not mere voter laziness. Healing that breach requires institutional humility, empathic communication, and intentional design of inclusion. Apathy is a conversation to be heard, a system to repair, and a democracy to heal.

In Anambra, apathy is a system to repair, not a problem to fix. Voter disengagement is a trace of relational betrayal, an invisible wound inflicted by systems prioritising procedure over dignity. By listening, mapping experiences, and intervening empathetically, elections can become acts of democratic repair rather than mere administrative exercises. Engagement, trust, and dignity are the real measures of success.

Lekan Olayiwola is a peace & conflict researcher/policy analyst. He can be reached via [email protected]