Dr Ben Nwankwo, a Chieftain of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has advised the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to improve on its technology and logistics towards a credible general election in 2023. Nwankwo, a former member of the House of Representatives, in Awka on Sunday.
The former lawmaker who represented Orumba North and South Federal Constituency at the National Assembly, said that INEC must strive hard to adopt a faster technology to ensure credible poll in the future.
“INEC must strive hard to ensure that it adopt a faster technology to ensure smooth conduct of future elections especially the 2023 poll,” he said.
Nwankwo also the Chairman, Africa Institute Of Public Administration was speaking on the Nov. 6, Anambra Governorship Election.
Join our WhatsApp Channel“Nigeria by now should have been classified as a developed country, but we are taking steps backwards.
“The election will have been one of the best in recent times and everybody will have been commending INEC for that.
“The Security arrangement was wonderful, there was no breakdown of law and order to the best of my knowledge.
“But the sad news is that the technology failed to work by not being rapid that culminated in lost of time, people coming out not getting accreditation at the right time, ” he said.
Nwankwo said that the procedure adopted for the election was commendable.
“The procedure will have been wonderful because it was accreditation, vote and go, that will have looked like what is obtainable in advance countries of the world.
“But the technology was on trial and being on trial I think its effectiveness was around 30 per cent. I don’t know why it failed to work, whether it was network issue or something else. It may be bandwidth issue or something else.
“May it was heavy traffic that caused the network not to work.
“INEC should be improving, it should not be going back and front,” he said.
Nwankwo said that the budgetary provision for INEC was enough to guarantee credit elections in the country.
“The budgetary provision for INEC is sufficient enough to guarantee credible and fair election. Nigeria in the 21st century should be able to organise a hitch free and credible poll.
“The election environment was okay, security was fantastic, because I didn’t get to hear stories of stealing of ballot boxes and didn’t get to hear about any fight.
“The number of security personnel deployed was equally commendable.
“But the efficiency of the voting system seemed to have left much to be deserved,” he said.
