The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has disclosed plans to introduce new innovations to the forthcoming gubernatorial elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states.
The commission plans to use an e-collation system that will transmit election results from the polling units. This will be done with the hope of ensuring the easy and transparent collation of results.
This disclosure was made by the INEC’s director of information and communication technology, Chidi Nwafor, on Wednesday, August 26, in Abuja during the opening ceremony of the 2015 Engineering Week and Annual General Meeting organised by the Abuja branch of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, Leadership reports.
Nwafor hinted said that apart from the introduction of e-collation, the commission would use permanent voters cards, card readers and other improved systems that will ensure free and fair elections.
He said: “We are putting a system that when the results come from the polling units to the ward, the ward assistant who already has a software that has been developed and tested will compute it in the developed software which will give scores of political parties and the percentage scored.
“With this, the elections in Bayelsa and Kogi will be difficult to rig, so Nigerians should expect better governorship election since there will be an improvement on the card reader.”
In his presentation, titled ‘Technological Innovations in 2015 General Election, the Role of Engineers’, he said that despite the successes recorded in 2015 general elections, the commission could not implement e-voting as it was not backed by the law.
He stated that the success achieved in 2015 general elections could be attributed to the resilience of the former chairman of the INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, to digitalise the voters’ register and to the introduction of permanent voters’ cards.
Meanwhile, there are indications that the acting chairperson of the INEC, Amina Zakari, might soon be confirmed as the substantive chairperson of the commission.
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