The head of publicity for the People Democratic Party (PDP) Olisa Metuh gave a scathing remark on INEC following several high profile technical glitches in the electronic devices in several polling units nationwide.
The technical glitch was most widely publicized on Saturday, 28th March, morning when President Jonathan and Patience showed up at the polling unit at Atuoke, Bayelsa and the device failed to read the President’s card. The other highly publicized technical glitches were that of State Governors Jonah Jang of Plateau State, Governor James Ngilari of Adamawa and Governor Isa Yuguda of Buachi State.
The PDP publicity chieftain said that INEC was responsible for this failure because they refused to heed earlier advice to test the system randomly through the public before the actual polling day. Testing the technical worthiness would have spared INEC of this hiccup and unscrupulous people may take advantage of the manual system such as underaged voters to cast their votes. Elements of fraud and unfair play is greater using the old manual system than electronics which is designated to weed out this unscrupulous problem.
“The unfortunate development is a vindication of our earlier position that as good as the idea of card readers is, it was too virgin to be successfully used in a general election without proper testing especially in an environment as ours that is not entirely digitally proficient”
“The PDP equally frowned at reported cases of accreditation of under-aged persons in some states especially in the northern part of the country and called on INEC not only to ensure that such unqualified persons are not allowed to vote but also to prosecute its officials involved in the crime.”
