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By Chidi Nkwopara
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
OWERRI—THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it has developed a system which would effectively check the inclusion of fictitious names by fraudulent politicians in the country’s voters' register.The INEC Chairman, Sir Abel Guobadia, on a visit to Governor Achike Udenwa, of Imo State in Owerri said that “with this pleasant development, the tendency of fraudulent politicians to use fictitious names to beat the system will soon be a thing of the past.”According to the INEC boss, the organization has, through its programmed finger print matching,eliminated double registration of voters in the 774 local government areas of the federation.
He promised that in the next few months, INEC would display the fresh voters' register, adding that some of the objectives of the impending exercise would be to strike out the names of dead people, correct wrong addresses and names, as well as register those who have attained the age of 18.While informing the governor that INEC had also formulated the Geographical Information System (GIS)t o assist the organization in carrying out its constitutional functions, Guobadia equally explained that this would ensure the mapping and physical location of polling units across the country.”The GIS would build the geographical database integrating polling stations, names and pictures of designated places”, INEC boss explained.
It was his considered view that the contentious population figures can only be ratified if the 2005 census was properly conducted and the results handed over to INEC ahead of the 2007 general polls.Casting his mind to the 2003 general elections, Guobadia said it was an improvement on previous polls,stressing that regardless of varying but obvious mistakes and constraints, the system would continue to move positively forward.In his reply, Chief Udenwa commended the management of INEC for successfully transiting from civilian to civilian regime, despite dearth of statistical data and glaring lack of the needed cooperation from the political class.
”I enjoin INEC management to ensure that the 2007 general elections would be free and fair, possibly one of the best to be conducted in this country, given the experience already gathered during the past polls”,Chief Udenwa pleaded.The Governor insisted that there was the need to create absolute confidence in the electoral process and institutions, pointing out that the current programmes enunciated by INEC would provide a forum for cross fertilization of ideas on the way forward for INEC staff, politicians and the general public.
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