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INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega
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•‘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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