After casting his votes around 11am for the presidential and national assembly elections, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)’s Lagos State gubernatorial candidate, Olujimi Joseph Agbaje expressed worry over the malfunctioning of card readers.
According to him, three people who voted before him and his wife, the card reader could not capture biodata of five of them. This development meant he and his wife had to do manual accreditation in order to vote. With this error, Agbaje said, the system is proned to human manipulation.
“In respect to my polling unit, I’m concerned that the card readers are not working. My wife and I and three others who voted before me, the card reader didn’t work for us. That opens the rooms for all kinds of insinuations, mischiefs and human manipulations. As we still have a situation where you have to bypass the card readers, it means we haven’t yet got it right,” Agbaje said while addressing newsmen after voting at Ward A, polling unit 004, Hindra, GRA, Apapa, Lagos.
The Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) made alternative provision for voters whose accreditations could not be verified electronically to be manually accredited. But the error coming from the card readers means the electoral process could easily be manipulated, giving rooms for voting by proxy.
“If the card reader doesn’t work, it means if I have colluded with officials [of INEC] with a wrong PVC, then I’ll bypass the system. That’s really the issue because there’s no room for INEC to confirm that this person whose card hasn’t worked for the card reader is the real owner of that card. So, game can be played!
Agbaje expressed optimism of the chances of his candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to win the polls.
“For my candidate, I’m even more confident now than ever, very, very confident. What matters is that election is credible. That’s key, that we’re going to have credible elections that the process is going to work the way it’s expected to work. That’s what matters. The votes and numbers are on our side,” Agbaje boasted.
On the postponement of the elections, Agbaje frowned at INEC’s decision to have postponed the elections judging from how much time the commission had at its disposal to plan for the elections.
“It’s never a good thing to postpone elections. We won’t justify it. Like the saying goes ‘it’s better to have it done well than done badly’; it’s never good to postpone elections. These are elections that were fixed four years ahead. For the reasons of logistics given, it’s not acceptable,”Agbaje said.
Meanwhile, a group of election observers, Women Arise, headed by Joe Odumakin urged the security agents to be nonpartisan in the face of malfunctioning card readers.
“If the security agents can be neutral, half of the problems will be solved. So far, I’ve seen them comporting themselves. Even the soldier we saw on the roads have exhibited a great level of professionalism,” Odumakin said proudly.
