#NigeriaDecides2019 | Chidoka, PDP agent, raises concern over Card Readers in Northern states

There was mild drama on Tuesday at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, venue of the Collation of results of the presidential election held last Saturday across states in the country.

Osita Chidoka, former Aviation Minister and party agent of the Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar raised concern over compliance with the Independent National Electoral Commission guidelines on the use of Smart Card Readers for the elections.

The PDP chieftain demanded record of accreditation of voters by the Smart Card Readers for certain states in the Northern part of the country, particularly the northeast states ravaged by bandits and the terrorist gang, Boko Haram.

Checks revealed that there were reports of malfunctioning of the Card Reader during the elections.

Chidoka noted that the Collation Officers for Northern states have not raised the issue with the performance of the SCR in Northern states unlike their counterpart in the Southern part of the country.

The PDP chieftain expressed concern whether the item was not used at all, and if deployed, whether there was hundred per cent performance since it was not made an issue by either the Resident Electoral Commissioners or Collation Officers in the course of the presentation of results.

Chidoka further argued that the INEC guidelines made it clear that no voting should take place in areas where Smart Card Reader was not used and demanded an explanation on the usage and performance of the sensitive electronic materials in the northeast states.

He said his party has since written a petition which it intends to submit to INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu.

He said: “The issue before us, Mr Chairman, is that we feel strongly about and the chairman of the PDP has written you a petition. We are worried that the promise you made, the commitment you made and INEC made that as we are doing this collation of results, you will give us the details of accreditation captured by the card reader in the country.

“Yesterday my colleague raised the issue and we thought that when we come back this morning as we are listening to the states, we will be seeing the accreditation by the states by the card reader.

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“This, Mr Chairman, I like it to be on record that we want to see the accreditation for Bauchi State, for Borno State and Yobe in particular and of course, for the rest of the country because the number as we are seeing, it seems to me that we live in two countries.

“Why people in the south have issues with the SCR, why complaints were all over the place, we seem to have quiet and peaceful elections in places where the people have complained of severe cases of insecurity and harassments by the military and bandits.

“So, we would like you, Mr Chairman, and I forward this letter to you to say that we will appeal that if it is possible, Mr Chairman, that before we proceed to the next state you should please, project to us what the card reader has captured as the accreditation in these states.

“We are supposed to read from the card reader, the electronic collation as against the manual information that we are getting to process information here. While it isn’t yet signed into law in your guidelines it was made clear that no voting should take place where there is no card reader. So, Mr Chairman, we must appeal to you that we would like you to project this accreditation as done by the card reader.

“Please, if any of your staff is available, he can please, take a copy of this letter from the chairman of the PDP saying that what we are doing here will require us to have the accreditation as done by the electronic card reader.”

In his response, INEC chairman expressed reservation that the PDP agent chose the venue of collation of results to present a copy of a petition. He, however, promised to look into the observations raised.

“Thank you Mr. Chidoka. But there is a procedure for submitting correspondence to the Commission.

“We haven’t shut down our office. This is the International Conference Centre where we are using as collation centre. Kindly submit your letter to the office, it will be acknowledged. Your letter will now be studied and we will respond, accordingly. I believe that there are details in the letter that we need to study.”

The party agent for the All Progressives Congress, Barrister Festus Keyamo, (SAN) spoke in the same vein as he expressed dissatisfaction over claims by his counterpart, Osita Chidoka.