Beware Of Money Bags, INEC Warns Staffers

STAFF of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were Saturday warned against falling into temptation of moneybags that are desperate to compromise the presidential and governorship polls.

  INEC National Commissioner in charge of Oyo, Ogun and Ekiti States, Prof Lai Olurode urged staffers to safeguard their careers and the integrity of the electoral body.

  Olurode gave the clarification in Ado Ekiti at the weekend during a meeting with the management staff in Ekiti State, led by Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr. Sam Olumekun.

  He said the INEC staff owe it a duty to improve on the landmark recorded during the June 21, 2014 governorship election that was adjudged the best in recent time.

He said, “I want to let you know that you have a career to build here and these moneybag politicians will never hesitate to destroy you. We are going to improve on the welfare package that won’t make you to look into the pockets of these dangerous people.

“By now, we expect you to be working with political parties on how the voters can place the presidential and the National Assembly ballot papers. The red box is for the presidential while the black is for the national assembly because any wrong placement will be counted as invalid votes,” Olurode said.

   He also clarified that the Smart Card Readers being proposed for the 2015 general elections, is not synonymous with electronic voting as being erroneously thought in some quarters.

Olurode said the basic functions the device that is novel in the country’s electoral system is geared to perform, is to verify the Permanent Voter Cards (PVC) and authenticate the claims of the prospective voters.

    He said the fear that the device is synonymous with electronic voting, which contravenes the provision of the Electoral Acts 2010 as amended was misplaced and unwarranted.

“This device is meant to add credibility to our polls. It has to functions to discharge and that is to verify the PVC as being authentic or fake and to authenticate whether the voter that brings it is the actual owner because we won’t tolerate the use of cloned cards in this election.

“Smart card reader is not synonymous with electronic voting in any way. We have to make it clear that accreditation will be done on the voter register after your cards have been certified to be authentic and that is where voting starts.

“And we are assuring you that whoever that get accredited will certainly vote because there is no time limit to voting now. Voting will only stop when the last person on the queue votes, but there is limit to accreditation, “ he stated.

   He urged the staff of the commission to commence on a house-to-house sensitisation campaign to shore up people’s awareness to the collection of PVCs and the placement of the ballot papers.