The Independent National Electoral Commission has said it will not print new ballot papers for the March 28 and April 11 elections.
The commission had said it took delivery of all the ballot papers and had kept them with the Central Bank of Nigeria.
With the postponement of the elections earlier scheduled to hold February 14 and 28, there were speculations from various quarters that the commission might be forced to print fresh ballot papers and other sensitive materials.
However, the Chief Press Secretary to the chairman of the commission, Mr. Kayode Idowu, told our correspondent that the commission would still make use of the old ballot papers.
He said since the printed ballot papers didn’t carry dates on them, there was no need printing fresh ones for the rescheduled elections.
The INEC CPS gave an assurance that the ballot papers were safe where there were being kept and that there was nothing to be worried about.
Idowu said, “Ballot papers are safe where they are and I must also say that ballot papers that we printed doesn’t carry dates. Because of this, there is no need to change them or any of the sensitive materials.”
Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, had said when he was announcing the postponement of the elections that the commission would not require extra funds because of the shift.
He also said the materials already imported, which were received by the officials of the commission and the security agencies, were safely kept at the CBN.
The commission further explained that Assistant Presiding Officer at the polling unit has the responsibility of operating the voter card readers.
It added that poll officials that would operate the card readers had received extensive hands-on training and were well-equipped to handle the task and that the commission had also outlined the operational procedures in its ‘Approved Guidelines and Regulations for the Conduct of 2015 General Elections’.
On whether the card readers had been tested ahead of the 2015 general elections, the commission stated that they had been broadly subjected to what it described as simulation quality assurance, integrity and functionality tests, adding that INEC had full confidence in their performance for elections.
It said, “The device has also been subjected to performance and conformance test, both locally and in Texas, United States, laboratories by the Radio Frequency Identification Research Centre and found to be of the highest quality grade.
“Besides all these, and with additional time resulting from the rescheduling of the 2015 general elections, the commission has directed that stress test be conducted on the card readers in mock election scenarios — two states in each of the six geo-political zones — ahead of the new election dates.”
The commission promised to unveil details of this next week.
On the probability of the card readers failing to function, he said going by the results of tests already conducted, it was highly unlikely that they would fail on Election Day.
It nevertheless added that the commission had drawn up serial intervention plans in the “unlikely” event of the card readers failing. Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com