MORE Nigerians have reacted to the alleged failure of the card readers in some parts of the country during the presidential and National Assembly elections held at the weekend, blaming the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the situation.
Governor Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu of Niger State challenged INEC to avail the Nigerian public the identities of the suppliers of the equipment as well as the cost of the contract.
Speaking to newsmen at his residence in Minna, the state capital shortly after casting his vote, Aliyu, who was a senatorial candidate of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for Niger East in the election, noted that making those details available to the public would enable them make informed judgment about the workability or otherwise of the equipment.
On a personal level, he declared that the equipment, rather than adding value to the whole electoral process, had succeeded in creating more panic in the system, lamenting that 16 years down the line, the Nigerian democracy had experienced several trial and error processes.
For Governor Aliyu, the card reader has not added value to the whole electoral process, instead, it has created some panic in the minds of the people. Though it did not take him long to be accredited, the governor, confirmed that he had to use all his 10 fingers before one was eventually accepted.
“For me, the process didn’t take long, but my 10 fingers had to be used before one of them got accepted by the machine. But I had thought that anything to be done must add value to what you are doing, I thought that was the concept of the card reader.
“I have received complaints already in some local governments where the card reader did not work, and we said they should follow what INEC had already said. Where it is not working, you can by pass it and other things, but up till today, I’m still not convinced that it has added any value to the situation.”
For me, the process didn’t take long, but my 10 fingers had to be used before one of them got accepted by the machine. But I had thought that anything to be done must add value to what you are doing, I thought that was the concept of the card reader
The governor expressed the need for INEC to begin early preparation for e-voting immediately after the April 11 elections so that the next round of elections in 2019 should not suffer this kind of embarrassment.
Also, Governor Aliyu would want the commission to tell Nigerians the status of the earlier claims by the Department of State Services about the alleged cloning of the Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs) by some persons in Lagos, saying coming out clean by the commission would permanently lay to rest the conspiracy theory surrounding the PVCs.
“I’m very much concerned, when we are going to electronic voting, then we should start the process early enough, that is immediately after the April elections. We should not wait until it is six weeks to the election then you begin to introduce something new, that is not fair to the people and I would love to know the contractor and the amount of the contract that was awarded, for his do-called card reader, and then what happens to it after the elections. Is it going to be used now and discarded or will the information remain? Since what we have seen is called permanent voter’s card, that reader must also be permanent because that is where we have information about me.
“ I think we should be ready to deal with all these issues squarely, otherwise will be wasting a lot of resources unnecessarily. I believe that by now, after 16 years, we should be adding more, and not bringing new things into the system that we have not really been familiar with. After this election, I believe we should use the two weeks to correct whatever anomaly had been found and then by April 11, after that election, we must begin to talk about what will happen in 2019: is it electronic voting ?.
“The law says no electronic voting, but somebody issued the card read
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