Tuesday, April 07, 2015

2015 General Polls: INEC Exposes Reasons Card Readers Failed


INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega

•‘Nail polish, adhesive used to sabotage device’
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has maintained that it will not allow manual accreditation for Saturday elections. The commission, in a statement in Abuja yesterday, said unlike in the presidential and National Assembly elections where the commission relaxed the rules, Card Readers will be used for governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections.

The Nation report continues:
Consequently, the commission also revealed that it has worked on identified challenges that faced the operation of the Card Reader during the last elections.

The statement by the commission’s secretary, Mrs. Augusta C. Ogakwu, explained that there was no way the commission would suddenly replace the provisions in the books.

The statement reads: “The INEC wishes to inform all Nigerians that Card Readers will be used for the April 11, 2015 elections.

“The provision of the guidelines for the conduct of the 2015 general elections, which outlined what is to be done if a Card Reader fails and cannot be replaced by the commission within a specified time frame (i.e. reschedule the election to the next day), will be enforced.

“The relaxation of the guideline on March 28, 2015 was only with respect to the presidential and National Assembly elections held on that date.

“The commission has reviewed the operation of the Card Reader in the March 28 elections, identified the challenges and has taken adequate measures to address them.”

But, some senior security officers have alleged that nail polish and adhesive were used by many members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to sabotage the operation of Card Readers during the March 28 elections.

The officers, who craved anonymity, said superglue or transparent nail polish when applied to fingerprints creates new prints, thereby distorting original fingerprints.

Investigations also revealed that superglue contains Cyanoacrylate, which is a generic name for a family of strong and fast-acting adhesives.

It was also found that the vapours of Cyanoacrylate react with the chemicals that are found in fingerprints.

One of the security officials said most voters deliberately applied the substances to make the Card Readers unable to detect their fingerprints.

“They rubbed these substances to protect their fingerprints. The superglue and nail polish distorted their fingerprints and rendered the Card Readers unable to capture them.

“This gave room for agitation and confusion. In the process, INEC resorted to manual accreditation. The manual accreditation gave birth to manipulation and irregularities,” a senior security officer said.

He added: “They used it and it worked. They are also planning to use it on Saturday for the governorship and House of Assembly elections. They will create enough confusion that will compel INEC to revert to manual accreditation.”

He asked electoral officials to check fingerprints thoroughly before placing them on the card readers for identification and accreditation.
“INEC officials must do additional work. They should examine fingerings of each voter physically before using Card Readers on them. Otherwise, the failure rate of Card Readers in the next polls will be worse than the last election,” he said.

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