The Independent National Electoral Commission has disclosed that it will continue improving in ways it carries out its duty to enhance transparency in the country’s electoral process.
INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioner in Akwa Ibom, Mike Igini who appeared on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Wednesday November 25, said the Nigerian media will soon start projecting election results just like its ounterparts in the United States following the launch of the commission’s results portal.
Igini said the deployment of the public viewing portal eradicated electoral fraud in Edo and Ondo governorship election as Nigerians saw the result almost after the ballot was casted.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner also described the political elite as the biggest threat to the country, as he alleged that they are the ones attacking both the hardware and the software of INEC in order not to bring about credible elections in the country.
He said;
“I can confirm that INEC has made tremendous progress. The INEC of today is no longer the INEC of before because since 2011, the kind of elections that we have conducted had a remarkable departure from where we used to be even though we are not where we are supposed to be.
“The INEC public viewing portal is a new innovation to deal with the recurring issues of vote changes at the level of collation and that was why it was introduced to ensure that at the polling unit, once the result is published, it should be sent to the viewing portals so that Nigerians can see it.
“The way we are going, I am very sure not too far from now, Channels Television, all other stations, will be able to do what the CNN and other television stations do in America by making projections.
“In Edo and Ondo States governorship elections, even before INEC made the declarations, there was no tension in the country because people already had access, they could see the results, that is where we are going.
“But the problem we are having is that the political elite of our country are the greatest threat to our country. They are in disarray; they are the ones attacking both the hardware and the software of INEC in order not to bring about credible elections in our country.”
