INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, who made this known on Friday, added that the Direct Data Capturing machines needed for the exercise would arrive in the country before the end of this month.
He reaffirmed at the second annual Achebe Colloquium at the Brown University, in Providence, United States, that ad-hoc staff comprising mainly National Youth Service Corps members and university students would conduct the voter registration.
“NYSC provides a better pool of resources for our ad-hoc staff and we‘ve decided that is better than picking people from the streets,” a US-based Nigerian news agency, Empowered Newswire, quoted Jega as saying.
Jega told the gathering that included the Nigerian Ambassador to the US, Prof. Ade Adefuye, Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, and two former US Ambassadors to Nigeria — Mr. John Campbell and Mr. Walter Carrington — that ”when the voters list is ready it will be on the Internet.”
He said that INEC was currently improving on its information technology capacity in order to ensure that during the registration, voters could send text messages to the commission on its (registration) conduct.
Jega also noted that there would be about 70 million registrable Nigerians, adding that INEC ”will arrange to register whoever comes out of that bracket.”
While acknowledging the challenges that time limitation and other legal frameworks imposed on the 2011 elections, Jega said even though they (elections) might not be completely perfect, they would surely be credible.
”We are not going to have a perfect election, the expectations are so high, but we shall lift the standards, so Nigerians can consider it free, fair and credible,” he assured.
On the legal issues, including the amendments to the 1999 Constitution and the 2010 Electoral Act, the INEC chairman said based on his knowledge of government workings, he ”believes the problems are being resolved, it‘s just a question of time for it to take effect.”
He was referring to the problems of the assent to the amended constitution which a Court of Appeal had ruled must be done by the President, and to which the National Assembly has vowed to contest.
Jega also said there had been some challenges with some INEC staff he inherited who were not professionals. But he added that, ”We are doing our best to bring dramatic change in a way that will not disrupt our plans for the elections.”
Insisting that a major component of electoral abuse in Nigeria was the issue of impunity when laws are broken, Jega said INEC had been engaging government agencies like the police and other security agencies, political parties and civil society groups to buy in to the reform of the electoral process.
According to him, “a key challenge is the problem of impunity, executive lawlessness, (and) using official power with impunity.
“We have said we shall not break the law, but will ensure that those who do so shall be prosecuted, this will sanitise the process.”
INEC, he observed would be very firm on the deadlines that have been set for the various stages of the 2011 poll.
“We shall be serious with deadlines on candidates‘ nominations and follow the electoral laws,” he said.
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