TheCable

The Abuja School of Social and Political Thoughts says minor political parties are having difficulty uploading data of their agents to the portal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Addressing a press conference in Abuja on Monday, Sam Amadi, the school’s director, said apart from the difficulty faced by these parties, INEC has reduced the time for the information to be uploaded by bringing the deadline to January 18 from 20.

Amadi said it would be a “breach of regulatory fairness for INEC to change its deadline for an activity important to electoral integrity after parties have factored such dates in their plans”.

“From our interactions with some of the parties outside the major ones, namely the PDP, the APC, the LP, and the NNPP, we receive reports of difficult in uploading party agents because of a myriad of reasons, including the difficulty using the INEC Portal for some of them and the number of PUs to be uploaded,” he said.

“Some of the officials of these parties informed us that INEC officials did not notify them that their method will only provide online forms suitable for self-service and not for enterprise use cases.

“Some of them have also complained that the tasks require more time than INEC allocates. Some of these party officials are requesting INEC to adopt the Enterprise Data Upload Method which will be easier and faster to enable them to quickly upload their agents and therefore be in a position to monitor and defend their votes, especially in the presidential and governorship elections where incentives for rigging and manipulations may be high.”

Amadi, former chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) said INEC should recognise its constitutional obligation to ensure fair procedures that do not disadvantage any party or voting population.