Amidst concerns raised in some quarters over the security of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s data bank, the commission has said it cannot be hacked.
Mohammed Kuna, special adviser to Attahiru Jega, INEC chairman, said in Abuja during a development discourse on evaluation of INEC’s preparedness that a system could be hacked only when it is online, and that the commission’s security data bank is not online.
He also said that hacking of the databank could only be possible if there is a saboteur within.
On the Commission’s Plan B in the event of card reader failure, the INEC representative said: “All electoral officers have been told that card readers must be replaced within the next two hours. In the event that it is impossible to replace the card reader within the next two hours, the election in that polling unit has to be suspended till the following day.”
Clarifying further on the inability of voters to vote irrespective of their registered centres, he said: “According to Electoral Act as amended, every voter must vote accordingly at the polling centre where he or she registered. Effectively, this has put paid to the issue on Diaspora voting which has been an issue at several fora. There is a database of 68,873,476 registered Nigerians.
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“The commission has taken a further step by making presentation to the National Assembly to change that aspect of the law, so as to create a basis for voting application anywhere and the Diaspora voting too, but the recommendations did not scale through at the National Assembly.”
Meanwhile, the commission has said that as at March 9, 2015, out of a total number of 68,833,476 registered voters, about 55,490,031, have so far collected their permanent voters cards, amounting to 80.61 percent.
This was contained in a table forwarded to BD SUNDAY by Kayode Idowu, chief press secretary to INEC chairman, which read ‘Distribution of Permanent Voters Cards as at March 9, 2015.’
Further analysis of the table shows: South East (6,583,517 voters have collected out of 7,638,859- 11.9%); South-South (8,226,502 out of 10,059,347- 14.8%); South West (8,914,830 collected out of 13,731,090- 16.1%); North Central +FCT (8,135,896 out of 10,648,883- 14.7%); North West (15,994,584 collected out of 17,620,436- 28.8%) and North East (7,634,703 collected out of 9,107,861- 13.8%).
Harrison Edeh
