The Independent National Electoral
Commission, INEC, told the Senate, yesterday, that it had no plan of
incorporating electronic and diaspora voting in the the 2019 general elections.
INEC explained that until the constitution was amended and necessary logistics
put in placed, it could not delve into such areas which it described as not
only lacking constitutional backing but also expensive to execute.
The commission also disclosed that
it would develop a strategic plan, with a view to coming out with the definite
financial figure required to undertake not just the 2019 poll but also others
pending for conduct within the ongoing year, including Anambra governorship
election and the court-ordered Anambra Central Senatorial District by-election.
INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood
Yakubu, who spoke when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Finance to
defend the commission’s 2017 budget, was responding to questions by members of
the committee, who requested to know the preparedness of his organisation ahead
of the general election.
A member of the committee headed by
Senator John Enoh, Senator Yakubu Abubakar, APC, Taraba Central, had wanted to
know whether the commission would key into the recently widely reported
breakthrough by the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure,
NASENI, in the invention of electronic voting in the 2019 general election.
But responding, Yakubu said he had
not been either formally or informally reached by the NASENI since the
invention was made, adding that he only heard about it in the media like any
other person. He, however, said even if he was reached formally to adopt
electronic voting in the election, it would not be possible, given that the
device, apart from requiring to testing to certify its efficiency, would also
need to be produced in very large quantity to cover the country’s numerous
polling units.
Answering another question from
Senator Umaru Kurfi, APC, Katsina Central, on whether INEC would incorporate
diaspora voting in the election, the INEC boss emphatically said no, explaining
that the country had not made provision for such.
He said the commission would not
adopt the system because of its capital intensive nature, aside from the
constitution which had to be amended Prof. Yakubu added that adopting the
method at this time of economic recession would deeply and negatively affect
the nation’s treasury. Yakubu, who noted that INEC’s annual budget had stood at
N45 million in the last three years, said he was yet to know how much the 2019
general election would cost the country, disclosing that the commission was
immediately embarking on what he called strategic plan to come out with actual
financial figure the election would cost the country.
Yakubu regretted that INEC’s purse
had been deeply drained, following what he referred to as “unscheduled
elections” in the last one year caused mainly by deaths of 13 national and
state assembly members.
“For instance, in the last one year,
we have conducted 13 unscheduled by-elections caused by deaths of some members
of national and state assembly, meaning that on the average, a member of the
national or state assembly dies every month, “he said. Earlier, chairman of the
committee, John Owan Enoh, explained that the purpose of the session was to
avail federal government agencies that come under statutory transfer the
opportunity of interacting with the committee on their revenue framework before
approval for their various committees.
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