INEC Outlines Plans For 2015

                                       

As a prelude to 2015 general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced early strategies it plans to deploy for its conduct of local government, governorship and presidential elections.

The commission announced plans to commence constituency delimitation and the continuous voter registration process by the first quarter of 2013.

INEC which disclosed that it would conclude printing of the planned 70.5 million permanent voter cards next year this year began the production of the first tranche of 40 million permanent voter cards.

The permanent cards, expected to last 10 years, contain security features such as barcode, hologram, micro text, fingerprints, contactless/embedded chip with printed voter details. Because of high cost, there will be no photographs embedded in the chip, the commission disclosed.

INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, made these disclosures over the weekend when he defended the commission’s N32 billion 2013 budget before the Jerry Manwe-led House of Representatives Committee on Electoral Matters.

The commission had proposed N57,708,199,460.26 billion as its 2013 budget but got an approval from the Budget Office to spend N32 billion for the said year, a situation Jega said could dent INEC’s preparation for the 2015 general election.

In a new voter verification system, Jega disclosed that the commission will procure card readers to assess the permanent electronic voter cards. Jega said the commission has plans to test-run the cards in bye-elections before 2015.

The INEC chairman said the commission does not need additional Direct Data Capture Machines (DDCMs) as existing machines are adequate to carry out the continuous voter registration exercise.

Jega said, “On election day, when the holder brings the card, that card will be swiped on a hand-held card reader; all the information that is contained on the card will pop up and you will have to put your fingerprint and the card reader will authenticate whether you are the true owner or not.”