The Resident Electoral Commissioner for Lagos, Mr Akin Orebiyi has tasked politicians on going to the grassroots to canvass for votes rather than contemplating on how to sabotage the electoral process stressing that such plot will fail.
Orebiyi gave the charge yesterday at a stakeholder sensitization forum held in Ikeja, the Lagos State capital.
The INEC boss informed that the card reader machines that will be deployed for the polls will eliminate every avenue of rigging. He described as exercise in futility any plans to hijack election materials or intimidation of electoral officers to alter results.
He urged those pushing for the non-usage of the machines to have change of mind adding that the machine will go a long way in giving credibility to the process.
“Snatching of ballot boxes or intimidation of poll officials to inflate results will not work out this time around. The reason for usage of card reader is to give credibility to the exercise. It helps to track voters and tally them according.
“So, each political party should go and do its work on the field, sell your plans to the people”,
“On those against card readers, those against perhaps do not understand the benefit and importance of that card. INEC has no uterior motive. It is for the benefit for all us. We will continue to appeal to them”, Orebiyi declared.
On the reliability of the card readers, the Lagos REC averred that the failure of the gadget was slim adding that if fully charged , the battery can last for 12hours.
Orebiyi explained further that there will be voting points that will be created to augment the existing polling units in the state. He said voting points was introduced to make the exercise faster.
He called on Lagosians to pick up their voters cards at the Local Government office of INEC saying there are about 1.8million cards that had been collected.
