Politics

Victory by wide margins no longer possible – INEC

Published

5 years ago

January 20, 2019

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof . Mahmoud Yakubu , says technology has been able to prevent rigging such that no political party can win an election by a wide margin as was the case in the past .Yakubu said this on the ‘ Osasu Show ’ which was posted on the show ’ s YouTube channel .

He said the Permanent Voter Cards and the smart card readers had been able to tackle rigging , hence the reason for the tightly contested elections in some off -season elections like the Ekiti and Osun governorship polls last year .

The INEC boss said , “ Between 2015 and November 2018 , we conducted elections into 195 constituencies , the largest number of off -season elections.

“ The turnout varied from a little over 50 per cent in Katsina to as low as 2 . 9 per cent in Ifako / Ijaye in Lagos and 3 . 4 per cent in Eti Osa state constituency in Lagos .

“ I think the thing to say about turnout is that because elections in Nigeria have progressively and incrementally improved , there is no possibility now that you will have the kind of margins that we used to experience in our elections before the introduction of technology — basically the PVC and the smart card reader.

“ The elections in terms of outcome and turnout of votes are becoming more international. You can see the outcomes of the elections are becoming more and more competitive and closer to the kind of results we see even in advanced democracies . ”

Yakubu said the Commission was ready for the elections, which begin in less than four weeks ’ time .