The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said it has developed a new modality to checkmate vote buying during the forthcoming general elections. The Commission also disclosed that it would not collate and transmit result of the elections electronically, throwing their weight behind the law saying it is not contained in our electoral law.
Mr, Festus Okoye, INEC National Commissioner and chairman, Information and Voter Education revealed this on Sunday night in Abuja during an interactive session with media executive.
The Presidential and National Assembly election will hold on 16th February, while those of governorship and state Assembly would be conducted March 2nd.
Lamenting the surge in the incidence of vote buying, Mr, Okoye revealed the commission has put in place strategy to check-mate the act, however, it discovered that sometimes those accused of the crime always device another means to thwart the commission effort.
Okoye disclosed that for now, the commission would not revealed the new strategies it has adopted for the forthcoming election, however, those planning to embark on vote buying will be shocked on the election day.
The officer added, “The other strategies we have designed will not be made known so that they will not go ahead of us,”. The official said the commission had enhanced the Smart Card Reader in readiness for the poll, adding that it had eliminated the use of incident forms.
The commission disclosed the result of the elections would be collated and transmitted manually.
He revealed that though it had conducted pilot of electronic transmission of results and would continue to do so, it would not use the method because it was not recognised by the Electoral Act.
“INEC is aware that there is a bill before the National Assembly that may likely lead to the amendment of the law,” he said.
“It is essential for INEC to pilot in e-collation and transmission of result so that any day the National Assembly amends the law, we will be good to go.
Although the commission noted that some advance democracies do not collate and transmit election result, however for those engage in it had to revert to the manual method because the electronic process could not be trusted.
According to the national commissioner, INEC had also accredited 116 domestic observers and 28 foreign observers for the elections.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner in FCT, Yahaya Bello, who was present at the event appealed to the media to collaborate with the commission for the success of the elections.
