A former Resident Electoral Commissioner in Akwa Ibom State, Mike Igini, has declared that it won’t be easy for politicians to rig the 2023 general elections in Nigeria.
Igini argued on a national television programme monitored in Lagos by our correspondent that with what INEC has put in place and following the enabling legal power conferred on it by the new Electoral Act, politicians who were contemplating rigging the forth coming election would be disappointed.
Igini declared that he has taken it upon himself to engage in voter education ahead of the 2023 elections as a way of deepening the nation’s democracy.
He stated that “2023 will mark a watershed in the history of electoral conduct in Nigeria because INEC has developed quite a number of tools unknown to people. How many people know that INEC does tracking during elections and as I speak to you, following the signing of the Act on the 25th of February this year, on the 26th INEC went to office reversing and changing things to reflect the current electoral Act. Many politicians are going to have what we call a dinosaur experience in 2023,” he said.
The former INEC officer was particular about Section 47 of the new electoral law as the main plank that will carry the changes meant to improve the conduct of elections in Nigeria.
“Section 47 of the Electoral Act 2022 has helped this country to cure the mischief that has been going on since the 2002 Electoral Act. Section 40 of the 2002 electoral act and section 49 of the now-repealed 2010 Electoral Act have been used by politicians to rig elections in connivance with some of our corrupt and compromised poll officials.
“For a period of seventeen years this has been the problem we have been having with section 40 of the 2002 electoral act and section 49 to the effect that when a voter comes to a presiding officer upon being satisfied that he is the true person we should give him a ballot paper, this is what has been used to rig election.
“Section 47 of the Act empowers INEC to use a smart card reader or any other technological device that may be prescribed by the Commission, for the accreditation of voters, to verify, confirm or authenticate the particulars of the intending voter in the manner prescribed by the Commission which was not the case before.
“Today, people must take note of the following, when you get to the polling unit, no more incident form, you can no longer talk about manual accreditation but what we have now is what we call the bimodal process,” Igini explained.
Igini equally stated that it was for the implication of Section 47 of the new Electoral Act that PVCs that were stolen or illegally acquired by unscrupulous politicians were dumped in the bush because there was no way they could be of use to anybody again.
“I am sure recently you have been reading that they are dumping PVCs somewhere. Do you know the reason they are dumping PVCs? They are dumping PVCs because of the fact that section 47 has now cured this section 49 which has been used to rig before. So under the current section, all those who have warehoused INEC PVCs cannot use it anymore,” he said.
