Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the confirmed substantive Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Thursday said electronic voting (e-voting) is desirable and inevitable, but the experiences of other countries with e-voting make it necessary for Nigerians to be careful.
Moreover, since Nigerian government usually waits till last minute for fire brigade approaches to preparations, and meanwhile, e-voting implies adding biometric data and photographs to Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) to further prove the authenticity of the bearer and integrity of the card, there are implications which must be considered before adopting e-voting.
Yakubu made these cautionary statements during his screening by the Senate in Abuja on Thursday prior to his confirmation.
President Buhari on October 21, named Yakubu as the national chairman of the INEC. He is a professor of Political History and International Studies, and was the executive secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund.
He said: “E-voting is desirable and inevitable. But we need to think through the implications of what we do. Photographs and biometric (data) have been added for e-voting. The experiences of other countries show we have to be careful.”
The substantive chairman said that these challenges have to be treated with ready solutions.
“We have a culture of last-minute fire brigade approach in preparation for elections in this country. We can’t transplant these experiences, we can only borrow,” he said.
Furthermore, he assured the nation of free and fair elections in a peaceful voting environment.
As at last February, about 70 million Nigerians registered for the 2015 elections: 56.3 million PVCs were distributed; 500,000 PVCs were not printed in time for the elections and 12.3 million PVCs were printed but not distributed.
He said, “Instead of finding fault on why they collected PVC in Borno State but they did not collect elsewhere, I will rather focus that by this time next year, all the 12.3 million PVC’s and 500,000 PVCs are printed and distributed subsequently.”
Yakubu added that by the 2019 elections, there will be no issues with PVC for those who have come of age and relocated, although people have the right to take the PVCs and choose not to vote.
Afterwards, the Senate confirmed Professor Yakubu as the substantive Chairman of INEC.
The Senate also confirmed the five others as federal commissioners to represent the various geopolitical zones of the country.
Meanwhile, five nominees for INEC commissioners were also confirmed after they were also screened and confirmed. They are: Immediate-past acting chairperson Amina Zakari, Baba Shettima Arfo, Antonia Taiye Simbine and Muhammed Mustapha Lecky and Soyebi Solomon.