2015: Ballot box snatching impossible, says Jega

INEC, Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, on Thursday said ballot box snatching  would not be possible in the 2015 general elections.

He, therefore, urged politicians not to engage in the illegal act in the forthcoming polls.

The INEC boss also declared that political parties de-registered by the commission would not be re-registered.

Jega, who spoke at the closing ceremony of a four-day retreat for INEC’s commissioners in Kaduna, said the new digitalised system would render such act invalid. He noted that any politician with such wishful dream should perish it.

He said henceforth every polling booth would have a specialised digital number and all voting cards for that particular station would carry the digital number.

This, he noted, would make ballot box snatching difficult for politicians.

Urging politicians to play the game according to the rule, Jega noted that politicians that snatched ballot boxes, would be detected and their votes declared invalid.

The INEC chairman said, “The new system of digitalised electoral procedure has made it impossible for carrying ballot box from one polling station to another, because henceforth every polling booth will have a specialised digital number and all voting cards for that particular station will carry the digital number.

 “When you register in polling booth ‘A’, your registration number is one, everybody that registered there will carry number one, which means that polling unit is ‘A1’. If your polling unit is ‘B’ you have ‘B1/1-500.’ If your voting card is registered under ‘B’ unit and it finds its way into ‘A’ unit box, that vote automatically becomes invalid.

“It pays for people contesting election to ensure that they play by the rules of the game, because when you snatch ballot box from one polling unit to another, you stand the chance of losing the votes count as they will all be declared invalid.

“With this new system and other initiatives put in place by the commission, 2015 will witness a hitch-free election, even though I cannot assure you of absolute perfection as we are learning day by day.”

Jega reiterated that the retreat was seeking ways to correcting past mistakes made by the commission.

“We came together to brainstorm on problems encountered by the commission in previous elections and after three days of deliberation, we concluded that some of the major problems facing INEC include the delay in the supply of voting materials to polling units, competent personnel and security coverage for the staff,” he said.

Saying that the commission alone could not deliver the  desired free and fair polls, Jega insisted that the collaboration of  other agencies and stakeholders would be required in 2015 elections.

He said, “We in the commission cannot solve those problems alone, we need the collaboration of other agencies like the security and the Presidency to ensure that funds are made available at the right time for the right purpose.”

On the  de-registration of political parties,  Jega said the commission stood by its decision even as the matter was before a court.