‘We’ve made rigging impossible,’ Jega says

The Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), Attahiru Jega has said that the commission has made it impossible to rig in the upcoming general elections.

Jega also said that the attacks against him for insisting on using electronic card readers for the polls were being launched by potential election riggers.

He stated further that he had anticipated the attacks and as such had no regrets.

Jega stated this on Wednesday, March 25, while unveiling the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room in Abuja.

“Let me use this opportunity to reassure Nigerians that we believe that we have done everything possible to ensure that the 2015 general election is successful,” Jega said.

“Beginning from today, we are commencing the rolling out of non-sensitive materials. Likewise, from Friday, all the sensitive materials will be retrieved from the vault of the Central Bank Nigeria by our officers, accompanied by security operatives and representatives of the political parties,” he added.

“We can see the dust that the introduction of card readers raised. So we decided to keep piloting and improving on the system beyond 2015, hopefully, by 2019, the commission will introduce it for the general election. This is indeed why they have been attacking me because they know that the card reader machines will help us to address all those irregularities, starting from the accreditation of voters at all the polling units,” the INEC Chairman said.

“How can they manipulate the election when all the information with regards to the number of voters that turned out at every polling unit is automatically captured and transmitted by the card reader machines? We have made rigging impossible for them as there is no how the total number of votes cast at the polling unit could exceed the number of accredited persons. Such discrepancy in figures will be immediately spotted. This technology will further make it impossible for any corrupt electoral officer to connive with any politician to pad-up results,” he continued.

The spokesperson for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) campaign organization, Femi Fani-Kayode recently criticized INEC for insisting on using the card readers despite flaws in its operation.