By Victoria Ojeme

National Coordinator, Election Monitor, Abiodun Ajijola,has called the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to make a forensic audit into locations where smart card reader failed.

Ajijola, stated this in Abuja at the public presentation of the 2017 Anambra State government election observation report, adding that the group requested this because it was clear that in many locations where the card reader supposedly failed, the polling officials did not follow INEC guidelines on the usage of Smart Card Readers.

According to him, there is no provision in the INEC guidelines to resort to manual accreditation in the event of the failure of a smart card reader.

“The commission should check the card readers to determine their functionality. Any card readers found to be functioning properly should be noted and the polling officials in charge should be brought in to explain why they abandoned working card readers, ” he said.

According to him, the commission should reconsider the use of AD-hoc personnel as Supervisory Presiding Officers ‎(SPOs)

“Our recommendation is that INEC should look inwards to its own staff for this critical function among others,” he said.