The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and its chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, held on Monday, March 16, a INEC Town Hall meeting at the Ya’adur Centre, Central Abuja.
During the meeting, all political parties and citizens of Nigeria were able to ask questions on INEC’s preparedness for the 2015 general election.
Below are the main points covered by the INEC at the meeting:
The military will not be at the polling units rather 3 armed policemen 300M away from polling unit;
Collection by proxy is prohibited in the INEC’s guidelines, and there is a disciplinary process for erring staff;
Political parties and the INEC agreed that if there’s a malfunction of a card reader, the accreditation will be suspended and the card reader will be replaced during the accreditation period;
The batteries of the card readers stay between 12-14 hours. “When you use the card readers without charging it, it gives 74% and if you charge it it gives you 100%,” the Director of ICT said.
The INEC removed over 4m people who registered more than once by raning data on AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System). “If you register more than once, we remove the multiple data and leave one. A voter won’t be disenfranchised because he registered twice,” Jega said.
Card readers, which scan fingerprints and record personal data against the electoral roll, will work and reduce the possibility of the persistent problem of fraud;
Card readers will be configured according to polling units. You can only vote where you registered;
A cloned card cannot be read by the INEC card reader;
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The INEC has produced and distributed over 67.8m PVCs and only 56m have been collected;
The INEC moved collection to the ward level to make it easier for voters to collect their cards;
The INEC separated the period of accreditation from the period of voting just like in 2011 to eliminate the possibility of multiple voting. Now the accreditation period is between 8am-1pm;
The INEC doesn’t have time or resources to organise elections for all IDPs in Nigeria. However, all IDPs in the 3 North-East states will be able to vote;
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No material relating to the preparation for the 2015 general election was involved in the fire incident;
Jega isn’t going to resign. “I’ve a job to do, and it would be a disservice to Nigerians for me to resign, i’m not under any pressure. There has been speculation about my removal, as far as I’m concerned I have a job to do and have no reason to resign,” he said.
For those who have no fingers or hands, the INEC did special registration;
Physically challenged voters have a separate and expedited queue to enable them vote without stress.
