INEC Gives Real Reasons Smart Card Readers Are No Longer Useful

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, on Wednesday declared that Smart Card readers have lost their usefulness.

INEC’s National Commissioner of Information and Voter Education, Festus Okoye said the smart card reader has lost its relevance because the courts do not recognise it as a means to prove over-voting.

Okoye, who spoke yesterday in Abuja said the courts still rely on voter registration and election results as a means of proving over-voting.

He also blamed politicians for the nation’s electoral woes.

“We must also find solutions to the issue of smart card reader. The smart card reader has lost its efficacy. The smart card reader has lost its vibrancy in relation to the electoral process because the political elite has found a way around it.

“So, rather than use the smart card reader, they just ignore it, because ultimately, they know that when they get to the court, what the court will be saying is that: ‘you want to prove over voting? We want to see the voter register and we want the INEC forms and not the smart card reader’.

“So, as far as I am concerned, the smart card reader has become a redundant instrument and inconsequential,” Okoye said.