Com Jasper Azuatalam

The Nigerian presidency and the Peoples Democratic Party have relentlessly fought the use of card readers for the 2015 general election.

While they are still fighting to stop the use of card readers, it is pertinent to understand the role of the card reader in the 2015 general election so that one will be better informed on why the PDP does not want the use of card readers.

It is also important to analyze some previous results of former presidential elections where the PDP allegedly won.

The INEC card reader: nightmare of PDP leaders

What the card reader will do:

1. The card reader will authenticate only cards that were produced and issued by INEC

2. The card reader will automatically send the number of accredited voters from each polling unit to the INEC data at the national office

3.The card reader will prevent impersonation of voters

The figures obtained from the vote cast in 2011 presidential election from the South east and south south

State No. of reg voters. Party Votes Won % of # of votes cast
Anambra 1,758,220 PDP 1,145,169 98.96%
Enugu 1,301,185 PDP 802,144 98.54%
Akwa Ibom 1,714,781 PDP 1,165,629 94.58%
Imo 1,611,715 PDP 1,381,357 97.98%
Ebonyi 876,249 PDP 480,592 95.57%
Bayelsa 472,389 PDP 504,811 99.63%
Abia 1,481,191 PDP 1,175,984 98.96%
Delta 1,900,055 PDP 1,378,851 98.59%
Rivers 2,419,057 PDP 1,817,762 98.04%

The results above showed that there were over 95% turn out of voters in all the states in the South east and South south in the 2011 presidential election.

This was against the generally accepted 50% turn out of voters by local and international observers for the same election. It is also worthy to note that no governorship, senatorial election and House of representatives election recorded up to 60 per cent turn out of voters even though more voters turned out for the elections than the presidential election.

To buttress the fact, in Imo state, the governorship election in 2011 was keenly contested and the votes scored were as follows; Rochas Okorocha polled a total of 336,859 votes to defeat Governor Ikedi Ohakim of the Peoples Democratic Party , PDP , who came second with 290,496 votes. The total votes for the two: 627,358.

This is against the 1,381,357 recorded for President Jonathan in Imo state in the presidential election with a lower turn out of voters compared to the governorship election.

With the use of the card reader, there will not be addition of votes to any candidate as the number of accredited voters will be sent directly to INEC data base in Abuja which will be compared to the numbers recorded in all polling units.

By that, this kind of magic figures generated by Goodluck Jonathan in 2011 will be curbed.

ON THE USE OF CARD READER WE STAND.

*Azuatalam is Chairman, Buhari Vanguard