Permanent voter cards coming - INEC

THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in Abuja, on Sunday, said it would soon start issuing permanent voter cardsto Nigerians.
Its chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, gave the assurance when he fielded questions at an interview session of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
He said that distribution of the proposed voter cards would begin before the end of 2012, adding that the objective was to improve the credibility and transparency of the electoral process in the country, including the use of technology in elections.
"As you know, we did biometric data registration; before the end of this year, we will start issuing the permanent voter cards and these permanent cards that we are going to issue are chip-based,just like many of our own bank cards.
"So they carry all the information on a microchip, which is embedded in the card of the voter. What we believe we can achieve at the minimum by 2015 is that, we can achieve 100 per cent authentication at the polling units," he said.
The INEC helmsman added that "if a voter comes to the polling unit and brings out his or her card, we will be able to determine 100 per cent whether he is the legitimate holder of the card."
He explained further that card readers would be available in all the polling units to ascertain the legitimacy of the holder, adding that the process of identifying valid owners of the card would go along way to improve the credibility and transparency of the electoral process.
On the proposed electronic voting in 2015 and its feasibility, he said "technically, there is no proposal by INEC that it should be adopted in 2015."
He said INEC, instead, made a recommendation to the National Assembly that the provision of the constitution, which prohibited electronic voting, should be removed due to its limitation.
"Right now, if we are to introduce electronic voting in this country,we have to do a lot of piloting. We have to do a lot of sampling of existing machines. Right now because of that prohibition, we can't even attempt to do it," he said, adding that INEC would explore the possibility of electronic voting if the said provision was deleted from the constitution.
Meanwhile, INEC has started restructuring and reorganising its workforce for efficient and effective delivery on the electoral process.
Professor Jega also disclosed this, adding that the commission also planned to put in place a workforce that could keep on givingits best and making sacrifices both for INEC and for the country.
He said in the next two months, the exercise would be completed,leading to the actualisation of the vision of having the best election management body in Africa.
Jega said that the exercise was being handled by some of the best management consulting firms, adding that the exercise had nothing to do with retrenchment.
"The problem is that in Nigeria, anytime you talk about restructuring and reorganisation, people think you are talking about retrenchment; it needs not be so.
"In INEC, our restructuring and reorganisation is not synonymous with retrenchment. We are doing everything possible to bring efficiency and effectiveness and it can be done without the kind of massive retrenchment that people fear and expect," he said.
Jega said his 23 months in office had been very challenging, adding that he was fully determined to take INEC to a greater height.
The INEC boss further stated that the enormity of the challenges could not be underestimated, as a lot still needed to be done, mostly with the ways elections were conducted, which made many Nigerians disappointed in whatever INEC did.
Jega noted that some politicians were still unhappy with the conduct of 2011 elections, in spite of the improvements recorded in the electoral system, adding that such politicians expected 100per cent perfection in the conduct of the exercise.
"We believe we have done quite a lot to lift the bar in terms of transparency and credibility of the electoral process. The challenge for us as we move toward 2015 is to learn the lessons of all the elections which we have conducted and to continue to plan and improve upon the conduct of subsequent elections," he said.