The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, has outlined some of the measures already taken by the commission to ensure the integrity of the 2015 general elections.
According to Jega, the commission has in addition to other measures customized the ballot papers to be used in the coming elections to forestall the usually rampant issue of ballot snatching and box stuffing.
The INEC Chairman spoke to members of the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers of Nigeria (GOCOP) in Abuja recently.
He said that this time around ballot papers woul be numbered serially such that ballot papers to be used in particular polling area or units would be properly numbered and documented.
According to the INEC Chairman, the commission has also customized ballot papers through colour coding of the papers by local government areas.
He added that ththe commission in addition customized the result sheets for each polling boot, which will make it exceedingly difficult for any person to change results already recorded at the polling boots.
“With serial numbers on ballot papers it will difficult to stuff ballot boxes,” he said.
These measures, he added, are further reinforced by the modified the use of adhoc staff.
“We used to use teachers, and other workers in the state system; but now We have started using members of the NYSC massively,” Jega said.
The commission, according to INEC boss, has over time seen corps members to be reliable as they are more unlikely to be swayed by partisan interests.
On the vexed question of security during elections, he said that the commission had been holding interagency consultative meeting on electoral security, which is meant to improve the commission’s relationship with various agencies.
Jega said that the overall goal was to determine how the agencies could work in harmony to ensure better security of voters and INEC officials during the elections.
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