It is those who wants to rig that are afraid of card readers -INEC Boss, Jega Fires
INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega, Wednesday, said he
has no regrets for insisting on deploying Smart Card
Reader machines for the conduct of the general
election, saying he knew that the decision would
attract unwarranted attacks on his integrity as a
person.
Would-be riggers the ones crying foul, says INEC
boss
Jega, who stated this while unveiling the Nigeria
Civil Society Situation Room in Abuja yesterday,,
maintained that it is only those that hitherto
nurtured plans to fraudulently manipulate the
outcome of the elections, that have been crying foul
over the introduction of the technology which he
said would only add credibility to the electoral
process in the country.
He said that INEC had perfected all its strategies and
put every apparatus in place with a view to ensuring
a hitch free poll that will reflect the summative
choice of Nigerians.
"Let me use this opportunity to reassure Nigerians
that we believe that we have done everything
possible to ensure that the 2015 general election is
successful. We are adequately prepared in terms of
both logistics and manpower. Likewise, all the
security agencies, especially the police which have a
lead role to play in terms of providing security
during elections, have assured us that they are
ready.
"Beginning from today, we are commencing the
rolling out of non-sensitive materials. Likewise,
from Friday, all the sensitive materials will be
retrieved from the vault of the Central Bank Nigeria
by our officers, accompanied by security operatives
and representatives of the political parties".
He said that the materials would be distributed to
states from where it would be taken to local
government areas and subsequently to the ward
level.
Jega further highlighted the fact that the
commission has provided and reasonably equipped
Registration Area Centers, RACs, "to ensure that
both our staff in various states and security agents
spend few hours of the night on Friday there to
enable them to be ready to deploy the sensitive
materials on the election morning".
He assured that there will be remarkable reduction
in the delays that were previously experienced in
the commencement of elections, as well as retrieval
of materials at the end of election.
However, the INEC boss said it was regrettable that
the results of the election will not be electronically
transmitted to the collation points. He said though
INEC initially piloted the procedure at two previous
elections in Cross River and Niger States, "we
decided that we will not put the electronic
transmission of results to use in 2015 in view of the
controversies the procedure might likely generate
from those who don't see anything good in what we
are doing as a commission.
"We can see the dust that the introduction of card
readers raised. So we decided to keep piloting and
improving on the system beyond 2015, hopefully, by
2019, the commission will introduce it for the
general election".
'They know card readers 'll stop alteration of figures'
On the issue of the card readers, Jega, who stressed
that the process will help address concerns about
the alteration of election figures to fraudulently
confer advantage on some candidates to the
detriment of others, said no such thing would
happen this time around.
"This is indeed why they have been attacking me
because they know that the card reader machines
will help us to address all those irregularities,
starting from the accreditation of voters at all the
polling units. How can they manipulate the election
when all the information with regards to the
number of voters that turned out at every polling
unit is automatically captured and transmitted by
the card reader machines?
'We have made rigging impossible for them'
He continued; "We have made rigging impossible
for them as there is no how the total number of
votes cast at the polling unit could exceed the
number of accredited persons. Such discrepancy in
figures will be immediately spotted. This technology
will further make it impossible for any corrupt
electoral officer to connive with any politician to
pad-up results", he added.
Besides, Jega noted that in the past, dubious INEC
officials usually delayed the entry of number of
accredited voters until the end of voting so as to
have the leeway to tamper with results, a problem
he said would be obviated by the smart card
readers.
He said that both the card readers and the result
sheets would be taken to the ward levels, "once
there is evidence of tampering, the information
saved in the card reader will be retrieved.
"To my mind, these are some of the reasons why
many of them are opposing the use of the card
readers. The crooked ways they used in the past to
get away with manipulation of election results have
been dealt with. This time, with the card readers,
such fraud will be easy to establish.
"We have further made arrangement that all the
results coming to local government collection
centers will be scanned, transformed to PDF format
and uploaded on our website so that anybody can
go there and confirm result from his polling unit.
"We believe that this is an added value to our
process, it is something that we have not been able
to do in the past. Let me also use this opportunity to
advise political parties to pay attention to the
appointment and accreditation of agents they will
deploy at the polling unit level.
They should not appoint people without credibility,
who can be bought over by other party agents",
Jega stated
0 Comments: