GEJ: Only Jega can explain card-reader failure
President Goodluck Jonathan says he will not speak for Attahiru Jega, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on the failure of voter card readers in several parts of the country during Saturday’s presidential and parliamentary election.
Jonathan, who was responding to questions from journalists after casting his vote in Otuoke, Bayelsa state, also said he would not blame Jega for noticeable lapses because government is one whole institution and INEC is only a component.
However, refused to answer specific questions relating to the conduct of the election, saying he would rather allow Jega speak for INEC.
“Let me use this opportunity to congratulate our dear country Nigeria and all those who have voted and would still vote, for their patience; they should sympathise with INEC,” he said.
“INEC wants to use the card readers to make sure that our electoral process is credible and acceptable by international observers. Somehow, being the first time we are practising with the card readers, there have been some issues in some units, but please bear with them. I believe at the end of the day, we all will be happy.”
Asked how the process had fared across the country, he said: “I have information but it is not all the information I have that I can say because INEC has the responsibility to talk about their own functions.
“The basic thing is that a number of places complained about the PVCs and card readers not working at the same time. INEC has directed that at voting units where the card readers are not working, they should take the manual option so I believe all Nigerians who want to vote will definitely vote and that is good news.
“The only thing is that some people must have stayed there longer than necessary, but I still plead with them that even if they spend 24 hours for the sake of this country, they should bear with us.
“I’m not putting blame on INEC, the government is one. I don’t blame INEC, judiciary, police, soldiers and executives. I am the president of the country. As a nation, we have different departments that handle responsibility. The issue of elections is INEC’s exclusive responsibility and nobody will speak for them. Even if i have some information, I can not speak for INEC. Jega is the only one that can speak for INEC. I speak for the federal government.”
On his chances of emerging winner, he said: “I am very hopeful. You are here in my very home and you have seen that it is peaceful everywhere. I believe and I’m convinced that the elections will be free and fair.
“I don’t think the issue of the card readers are limited to my local government. If the card readers are not working, it is not limited to Bayelsa state. We have similar issues in Anambra state. In fact, the governor in Anambra state called and was boiling. I told him to calm down.
“We have similar issue in Delta state. I am aware that INEC has directed the RECS that in places that the card readers are not working, they should take the manual option. If the card readers are not working, definitely they will use the manual option. I don’t think it is limited to PDP-controlled states; I think it is national.”
The chicken has come home to roost. From what was a fairly good election in 2011 INEC walked us into a card reader conundrum. I listened to Jega explaining away card reader failures during the trial run and I had a laugh. All that talk about finger prints not being recognised because our people are mechanics, et al, stood reason on the wrong side. The President was rejected by four card readers in what must be the mother of election embarrassments. At least we know the President is not a mechanic and has not been using his fingers to do menial jobs of late. The chaos that was witnessed across the country suggests we have wittingly elevated this exercise to a card reader fiasco. And it was clearly avoidable. In what is obviously a well intentioned development, INEC wants to block loopholes in the electoral system. But the Nigerian electoral enterprise is a humongous one. Sixty eight million voters is quite some size! The idea that first-time deployment of card readers in the presidential election would be successful was stretching ambition and imagination too far. Even with the impetus seemingly given to it by its politicisation, card reader proponents ignored basic lessons in the deployment of new technology. There is a reason experts opt for wide scale parallel runs and bit size experiments. It was a disaster foretold, an avoidable failure. Talking about failure, Jega said as an old teacher he knows 60% is pass; he said the card readers worked in 60% of the cases, fingerprint wise. But sorry, the card reader examination is not similar to Jega’s classroom examination; the card reader examination requires an absolute minimum pass mark of 100%. INEC is in ‘luck’ because the society is polarised and any comment for or against is viewed in conspiratorial terms, for what many will be wont to seeing as capacity issues in INEC’s leadership.
Anyway, we are where we are and must look forward. We need to pull up for our sake and for the sake of our country and accept the results, card readers or not.