By Omeiza Ajayi
ABUJA – Disturbed by the growing wave of election-day violence in the country as well as continued attempts by some political elements at results manipulation, the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC has said it has commenced moves to introduce electronic collation as well as electronic transmission of election results in the 2019 general elections.

INEC said with its introduction of the Smart Card Readers SCR and the Permanent Voter Cards PVCs since the last general elections, the focus of some unscrupulous partisans has shifted to launching attacks on electoral officials during the physical transmission of results from the Polling Units to the Collation Centres.

Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu gave the hint at the weekend in Abuja while responding to media enquiries at a two-day Capacity Development Workshop for members of the INEC Press Corps, entitled: “Repositioning The Media for Effective Coverage of Electoral Processes”.

The electronic results collation and transmission which he said has been piloted in many bye-elections and all recently concluded elections, is a well-secured platform that collects data from the Polling Units and collates the results up to the required level for any set election.

Noting that there are plans to use the system live for the 2019 General Elections, he said the system would ensure data entry of polling unit results, collation of the election results and the transmission of same to a central database.

Yakubu

“Some of the (national) commissioners here went to Benin Republic in February and March; they had their presidential election. What we call ‘sensitive materials’ for which we deploy helicopters and gun boats and even armoured personnel carriers in Nigeria to protect, were the same materials that were given to a presiding officer in a polling unit and they put everything in a box, into the ballot box and then the presiding officer would stop a motorcycle and carry the materials to the polling unit unaccompanied by any security personnel.

“At the end of the elections, it was the party agents that calculated the votes, completed the result sheets, put them in a box and they stopped a motorcycle to take it to the collation centre unaided by any security. Why is our own experience different?

“We can introduce technology but technology cannot be all, but that is not to say that there is no place for technology in elections. There is a place for technology and I want to assure you that as part of the new initiatives we considered only just yesterday in our weekly commission meeting was this idea of introducing e-collation and e-transmission of results.

Already, we have a pilot scheme. When we conducted state-wide elections, the results were uploaded. Each time such elections are conducted I observe the results in our Situation Room and we follow the results from every polling unit, but you know INEC does not declare any result in Abuja, only the presidential election.

So, we have reached a point where we are prepared to deploy (the technology) and I am very happy to say that the senate in amending the electoral act is also going to empower the commission to introduce e-collation and e-transmission. If you noticed, much of the violence in recent elections do not take place in the polling units; it is in the course of transmitting the results. Now, once we introduce electronics to the transmission of results, we then have to take other measures to protect the polling units because violence will now turn to the polling units”, Yakubu stated.

Vanguard learnt that the commission began a pilot deployment of the system in 2014, but ahead of the next general elections, it is considering various options for deployment.

Checks revealed that INEC may have to adapt the Smart Card Readers to capture and send results at polling units or to procure tablets per Registration Area so that the results sheets are snapped and transmitted at the registration areas.