Former President Goodluck Jonathan was again worried by the failure of Independent National Electoral Commission’s card reader to recognise his fingerprints and those of his relations.
The ex-President, who looked disappointed, admitted that card reader use was a new phenomenon in Nigeria’s electoral process.
He said any system, no matter how good it is, once it cannot solve problems but create more problems, must be reviewed.
Accompanied by his wife, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, the former President lamented the cumbersome process involved in voters’ accreditation.
He said the period for accreditation and voting should be merged so that voters won’t have any need to go back home and come again for voting as it is done in many parts of the world.
Jonathan said, “Card readers take a lot of time today, especially in this polling unit where the failure rate is quite high. And if the failure rate is high, it takes a lot of time before the incidence forms are filled. This is a learning process.
“I believe before we get into another set of serious elections, INEC will review this by making sure that if they will still use the card readers, they will ensure that card reader technology is updated and the failure rate reduced to the barest minimum.
“I don’t expect that we should have more than five per cent failure rate. There was a high per cent of failure rate in today’s election. The card readers failed not because the people who had them carried fake or cloned cards, these are the people we know very well; they used the same cards to vote in previous elections.
“The idea of card reader is okay but the process must be acceptable; it must help to reduce the time, to help in managing elections. No matter how good the card reader is, if it is creating more problems rather than solving the problems, then it must be reviewed.”
