Politics
THE Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has said the commission’s plan towards a credible conduct of the 2019 is on focus.
Yakubu, who addressed members of the business community at a meeting organised by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Lagos State, noted that one of the major innovations of the commission since the 2011 elections was the culture of planning.
The professor of political history added that a large number of off-season elections conducted since the 2015 general elections had enabled the commission to fine-tune many of its plans.
According to him, it is becoming clear to the electoral body that its elections are getting better, both in terms of preparations and outcome.
Yakubu stated that although a lot of work needed to be done, the commission had improved on many areas.
He said, “There is now less litigation challenging the outcome of elections than we experienced in the past. So far, only four of the 180 elections conducted have been successfully challenged in court. Even so, the Election Petition Appeal Tribunals did not order the commission to entirely rerun any of the elections.
“The courts only ordered certificates of return be issued to petitioners instead of those declared winners by the commission while in the other two cases, the tribunals ordered the commission to conduct elections in a few polling units.”
The INEC boss added, “Our current electronic register of voters is the most robust so far. The electronic accreditation of voters using the machine-readable and chip-based Permanent Voter Card, complemented by the Smart Card Reader, was introduced in 2015 while the commission has been pioneering the electronic collation and transmission of results.
“Once these quadruple processes have been satisfactorily deployed, the commission will ultimately introduce electronic balloting which shall happen in a short period of time,” he added.
Speaking on the issue of insecurity, Yakubu said the electoral body was determined to ensure that no Nigerian was disenfranchised on account of displacement. – Punch
– Jul. 5, 2018 @ 9:59 GMT |
Tags: Only four elections overturned by courts since 2015 – INEC chairman
