Fifteen political parties and five presidential aspirants have threatened to pull out of the forthcoming general elections scheduled for March 28 and April 11 over the use of card reader device.
The Spokesperson for the group and National Chairman, Advanced Congress of Democrats, Dr. Breakforth Onwubuya, at a press briefing on Wednesday in Abuja, said the concept of using card readers for the coming elections, as being planned by Independent National Electoral Commission, “has a lot of implications which may negatively impact on the conduct of a credible, free and fair elections.”
He said, “The first drawback is that this device is relatively a new technology that has not been tested or tried in a kind of mock election or previous formal elections prior to this time. This would have enabled the nation and the electoral umpire itself to properly ascertain its workability and efficiency in the conduct of the real general elections.
“The decision by INEC to commence the test-run of the use of Card Readers in some of select states across the country on Saturday March 7, 2015, just less than three weeks to the commencement of the re-scheduled election, would not provide the commission enough time to rectify whatever anomaly that would likely arise from that exercise.”
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