Council Boss Urges INEC Accommodate Manual Accreditation on March 9

Council Boss Urges INEC Accommodate Manual Accreditation on March 9

INEC smart card reader

A local council Vice Chairman, Mr David Famuyiwa, has advised the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to urgently address the lapses recorded at Saturday’s elections to improve during March 9 polls.

Famuyiwa, the Vice Chairman of Agbado Oke-Odo Local Council Development Area of Lagos State, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria NAN in Lagos.

The vice chairman said that INEC should improve in the arrival time of its ad-hoc workers to enable timely commencement of the voting process.

He also said that the commission should address non- functionality of many card readers before the March 9 gubernatorial and house of assembly elections.

Famuyiwa advised that the electoral umpire should accommodate manual accreditation of voters, saying that Nigeria had not advanced enough to rely 100 per cent on cards readers.

“Some people voted in a particular polling centre in 2015, but when they got there this time around, their names were not on the voters’ register,’’ he added.

He said that it was wrong for people to be disenfranchised because their names were missing from a register where they should be.

“INEC has done its best but it is not good enough because it did not start working in some polling units until noon. There were cases of malfunctioning of card readers.

“However, national elections have come and gone,’’ he said, adding that Nigerians would be looking forward seeing improvements during governorship and house of assembly elections. (NAN)