The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday said it electronically transmitted results of 2019’s presidential election but that it was a pilot scheme.
INEC’s National Commissioner in charge of Kogi, Kwara and Nasarawa states, Mohammed Haruna, who represented INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, stated this in Abuja at the public presentation of the YIAGA Africa Watching The Vote (WTV) General Elections Observation Report of the 2019 elections.
Haruna said: “The key word is pilot. We were piloting and you have to take that into consideration. In fact, it is not a done deal. We were testing to see whether eventually we would use electronic transmission. The clarification from YIAGA about the law that if the president had signed it, it would give us the legal backing to transmit electronically.
“The fact is that the bill that eventually went to Mr. President never even continued that, this is the fact. So, as I said, the important thing is that it was not a law and we are piloting it at state level, for even this presidential, it was just a pilot.”
He added: “Let us be very cautious about this electronic silver bullet, each package comes with its own problem. Adopt it today, it is going to have its own problems, hacking and so forth.
“We have to be very careful that once we adopt IT, all our problems would be solved.”
