The Impartial Nationwide Electoral Fee will deploy technological innovation to examine any safety threats on its personnel and services in the course of the November 6 Anambra governorship election, its Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, stated on Friday.
Based on him, the deployment of a safety software was mandatory, following the assaults on its services in latest instances.
He said this in an interview with journalists after declaring open a retreat to evaluate the operationalisation construction of the Election Monitoring and Help Centre, which was held in Keffi, Nasarawa State.
The occasion was organised by INEC in collaboration with the European Centre for Electoral Help.
Saturday PUNCH reported that INEC had recorded over 41 deliberate assaults on its services throughout the nation throughout the final two years.
Yakubu stated the know-how could be built-in into the EMSC to avert or mitigate potential dangers or threats to the election.
He stated, “One thing new and progressive that we’re deploying for the Anambra ballot is the safety app in view of the latest assaults on our services throughout the nation.
“When elections are carried out, there are millions of interrelated actions taking place throughout the nation in far places, and the fee should be able to successfully monitor these actions and, like every thing we do, we don’t simply monitor manually however use know-how.
“These instruments have been of large profit, or in any other case, how do you monitor the deployment of hundreds of actions throughout elections? They aren’t new as we began deploying these instruments since 2010 and we’ve got used them for 3 normal elections now.
“As an affidavit to its robustness as an election administration instrument, many international locations within the West African area and past have proven curiosity in finding out and adopting the EMSC system for his or her use.”
He defined that reviewing such a know-how would help INEC in resolving its anticipated challenges earlier than the 2023 normal election.
Talking on the Electoral Act Modification Invoice just lately handed by the Nationwide Meeting, Yakubu stated the fee couldn’t successfully touch upon its provisions till the lawmakers concluded the legislative course of on the invoice.
He, nonetheless, said that the present electoral legislation was sufficient sufficient for the fee to proceed with the deployment of sure applied sciences.
“We don’t want any provision of legislation, as an illustration, for us to deploy EMSC or know-how for voter registration. So, we’ll wait and see what ultimately comes from the Nationwide Meeting for us to successfully remark,” he stated.
The ECES Venture Coordinator, Hamza Fassi-Fihri, represented by its Senior Electoral Administration Professional, Dr Isiaka Yahaya, assured the general public that the EMSC had come to remain as an “indispensable and integral a part of Nigeria’s electoral system.”
Yahaya stated the platform was additionally a course of to be exported by election administration our bodies within the African area and past.
Copyright PUNCH.
All rights reserved. This materials, and different digital content material on this web site, will not be reproduced, revealed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in entire or partly with out prior specific written permission from PUNCH.
Contact: [email protected]
