2015: Ballot Box Snatching Would Be Impossible, Says Jega

inec_ballot_boxThe Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, on Thursday warned that ballot box snatching would not be possible in the 2015 general elections.

He, therefore, urged politicians not to engage in the illegal act in the forthcoming polls as the commission had devised means of frustrating such efforts.

The INEC boss also declared that political parties de-registered by the commission would not be re-registered.

Jega, who made this known at the closing ceremony of a four-day retreat for INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioners in Kaduna, said the new digitalized system would render such act invalid even as he advised politicians with such wishful thoughts to bury them.

He said henceforth every polling booth would have a specialized digital number and all voting cards for that particular station would carry the digital number.

This, he noted, would make ballot box snatching almost difficult if not impossible for politicians.

Urging politicians to play the game according to the rules, Jega warned that politicians, who engaged in the illegal act of snatching ballot boxes, would be detected and their votes declared invalid.

The INEC chairman said, “The new system of digitalised electoral procedure has made it impossible for carrying ballot box from one polling station to another, because henceforth every polling booth will have a specialised digital number and all voting cards for that particular station will carry the digital number.

“When you register in polling booth ‘A’, your registration number is one, everybody that registered there will carry number one, which means that polling unit is ‘A1’. If your polling unit is ‘B’ you have ‘B1/1-500.’ If your voting card is registered under ‘B’ unit and it finds its way into ‘A’ unit box, that vote automatically becomes invalid.

“It pays for people contesting election to ensure that they play by the rules of the game, because when you snatch ballot box from one polling unit to another, you stand the chance of losing the votes count as they will all be declared invalid.

“With this new system and other initiatives put in place by the commission, 2015 will witness a hitch-free election, even though I cannot assure you of absolute perfection as we are learning day by day”.

Jega stressed that the retreat was aimed at exploring ways to correct past mistakes made by the commission.

“We came together to brainstorm on problems encountered by the commission in previous elections and after three days of deliberation, we concluded that some of the major problems facing INEC include the delay in the supply of voting materials to polling units, competent personnel and security coverage for the staff”, he said.

Stressing that the wish for free, fair and credible polls could not be achieved solely by the commission, Jega called for the collaboration of other agencies and stakeholders to help make the 2015 elections a success.

He said, “We in the commission cannot solve those problems alone, we need the collaboration of other agencies like the security and the Presidency to ensure that funds are made available at the right time for the right purpose”.

On de-registration of political parties, Jega said the commission stood by its decision even as the matter was pending before a court.