Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Why not?

The way Vanguard's reporters, Clifford Ndujihe and Dapo Akinrefon, report this story, it's almost impossible to avoid thinking there's an ulterior motive for abandoning the computers used for voter registration. And the lame excuse reportedly offered by the first INEC spokesman just adds to the suspicion.

Anxiety Over Inec's Bid to Dump Data Machines

THE Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, was on the hot spot, weekend, as fury raged among opposition political parties after the commission confirmed that it would discard the N40 billion Direct Data Capture, DDC, machines during the forthcoming election.

The Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, in a sharp reaction said the decision to use a manual register was to help the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, rig the election across the country.

The commission is, however, insistent in its course saying that there is no provision of the Electoral Law that compels it to use the DDC machines during the elections…

The INEC spent about N94.3 billion to register 65.2 million voters in the last voters' registration exercise amounting to $10 dollars or N1446.32 per voter…

Explaining how a manual register may be used by INEC, the party said if the electoral body failed to use the same DDC machines used to register voters at the various polling stations where they were used for the registration, it would be impossible to verify the fingerprints of each voter, hence he/she can vote as many times as possible…

Countering, Mr. Kayode Idowu, Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, said the electoral commission did not say it would use the DDC machines and assured that what was in the manual register was a replica of what is in the DDC machines.

His words: "INEC never said it will use the DDC machines for election. The law does not allow INEC to use e-voting for now. There is nothing the commission can do about that. However, what is in the manual register is a replica of what we have in the DDC machine.

The fingerprint on the manual register is the same with the finger print in the DDC machine."…