The Coalition of Democrats for Electoral Reform (CODER) yesterday flayed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for its decision not to use the card reader for the governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states.
The group said the decision is clearly ominous, adding that it has implications for free and fair elections.
The group’s coordinator, Mr. Ayo Opadokun, said that the decision on the card reader has affected the confidence of the voters, ahead of the polls. He warned against bungling the elections, saying that malpractices would be resisted.
He said: “The card reader is expected to make double or multiple voting and impersonation impossible because on the presentation of your voters card, your fingerprint will be tested with the card reader.
“The card reader will either validate or invalidate your claim of being a genuine voter. This certainly is supposed to be a significant step forward towards achieving credible elections and where every vote must count as demanded by Nigerians and the international community”
Opadokun said that INEC’s position on the voting arrangement is suspicious, stressing that the non-usage of the card readers would allow room for impersonation.
He told reporters in Lagos that the non-usage of the card reader may pave the way for the usage of “clown voter’s card”, warning that the scenario may lead to confusion, accusations and violence.
Opadokun added: “If the INEC’s turnaround position of not using the card reader is allowed to be, it means that the necessary trial runs of the card reader in the immediate elections holding in June and August to test the genuiness or the lack of it, the credibility or otherwise, of the machine has again been dubiously frustrated.
“If the prospect for testing the card reader to establish the accuracy of the technology, the knowledge and expertise of INEC ad hoc staff (the human users) are postponed, until 2015 general elections, it could be imagined that there is an alterior reasons for such a negative policy. The size of Ekiti and Osun states as a small size compared with the entire country are golden opportunity for INEC and the general public to be acquainted with the use of the technology.
“In 2010, in consequence of the nationwide and international agitations for a computerized voters register, INEC requested and was allocated over N80billion for the entire process of purchase and production of credible bio-metric voters register. Unfortunately, inspite of the patriotic warning and appeal from both local and international publics that the acquired Direct Data Capturing (DDC) machines that were customised for Nigerian should be technically tested for seemless functionality was ignored, the ad hoc staff (enumerators) of INEC (mostly Youth Corpers) were never trained in the usage of the machines. The INEC wrongly estimated that most Youth Corpers were computer literate which was not to be”.
Opadokun emphasised that, due to the avoidance of trial runs, the computerised voters’ registeration was in vain, pointing out that the errors have not been corrected, despite the claim made by the commission to save its face.
He also alleged that “the DDM malfunctioned and there were significant issues with the batteries leading to many delays, nationwide”.
Opadokun said that the most important facility, the “Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS)”, which was expected to clear up multiple registrations and detect under-age registrations, was equally neglected nationally, except in Cross Rivers State.
“The consequence of the lack of the usage of AFIS has led to the production of bogus and inflated register where INEC would tell the public that they have registered 60-70 million voters but the analysis always indicate that not up to 25 per cent eventually voted and the many cases of voters whose names were missing from the register on voting day’s inspite of some feeble efforts being made in the last two years or so.
“As a result of our platform’s commitment to ensuring that every vote must count, we are calling on well meaning Nigerians to mount credible campaigns to ensure that the already purchased Card Readers are deployed and test run in Ekiti and Osun states respectively. This is important so that Electoral Management, body, local and international publics are equipped for the prior usage and experience of the Card Reader performance before the nationwide general elections. Insisting on medicine after death policy as INEC has done repeatedly should be resisted.
“INEC should be happy to test run the card reader as to how it can be used, operated and deployed for maximum benefit to the entire election exercise in order to prevent multiple voting and impersonation.
Opadokun urge vigilance, recalling that the electoral commission has never lived up to expectation in the conduct of isolated elections, including the senatorial election in Delta Central, governorship elections in Anambra and Edo states and the recent federal parliamentary election in Ondo State. He said the elections exposed INEC’s ineptitude and inability to to ensure timely distribution of sensitive electoral materials.
He said Nigerians should mount pressure on the commission to test the card reader in Ekiti and Osun so that the rumour going round in the two states that certain candidates are already cloning Voters Cards for multiple voting and impersonation nipped in the bud.
Opadokun added: “CODER has it on good authority that one or two particular candidates and their party topmost leadership have recently embarked upon CLONING of Voters Identification Numbers (VIN) for the purposes of helping them to be able to do multiple voting and impersonate genuine registered voters. This stated uncovered ingenious agenda can only be possible if there is no usage of card reader which is a near perfect machine that can detect clown cards as it’s correlated with the voter’s finger print.
“Lets for once act our talk. Exporting what Nigeria does not have (credible) election to Sierra Leone, Liberia etc is disgraceful. Every vote must count”.
