The convener of the Coalition of Democrats for Electoral Reform (CODER), Mr. Ayo Opadokun has alleged that the ongoing flawed distribution of Permanent Voter Cards was orchestrated by the Professor Attairu Jega-led Independent National Electoral Commission to reduce the voting strength of opposition-controlled state.
The renowned pro-democracy activist stated this at a press conference in Lagos yesterday.
According to him, ‘The current hand-over of Permanent Voter’s Card(PVC) has therefore exposed Jega’s hidden agenda. He cannot reasonably deny that the current bungled exercise is not deliberately schemed to achieve a hidden agenda. From the inside, it has been revealed that Jega’s INEC is working to reduce the voting strength in opposition-controlled area through the guise of ‘loss data’
Opadokun further queried that, ‘How can Jega feign ignorance that he is not deliberately pursing an agenda to reduce voting strength in places like Lagos , Kano , Rivers when he allocates the same three days for the PVC collection exercise for all states including where their population is up to four and six millions against states with one or two millions”.
The CODER convener also flayed INEC boss for using the nation’s voters’ register to experiment PATCH software, which he said had not be tested anywhere before.
Opadokun said the software which was developed by a Kenya ICT Consultant was meant to clean up,” peculiar mess of multiple registrations, underage registration has been found to be corrupting the all important finger prints aspect of the bio-data. The consequence of this dangerous and avoidable fallout of the never tested PATCH is that it has become compulsory to re-capture the bio-metric of many already registered voters”.
According to him, the technical crisis would have been averted if the INEC Chairman had listened to stakeholders warnings on gambling with voters’ data.
“The revelation behind this avoidable technical crisis is as follows: credible information reveals that Prof. Attahiru Jega barely a computer literate has brought a Kenyan by name Mr Nyibi to be ICT Consultant . Nyibi has developed a PATCH software to solve some of the technical issues that INEC has been facing. But because the PATCH software has not been tested anywhere and found suitable to solve particular errors without creating critical technical issues in its usage has been out to be corrupting already captured fingerprints”, he argued.
On way forward, the activist asked the INEC to immediately discontinue the usage of ‘defective’ PATCH software. He also called on well meaning Nigerians to prevail on Jega to, “ Resume the usage of the 2011 compiled register for the 2015 General elections .
The fresh Voters Registration should proceed without further delay in other not to deny qualified Nigerians from exercising their most fundamental rights to elect persons that will govern them for particular period’.
