The National Unity Party (NUP), has challenged the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, to be firm in his pronouncement that all election results would be announced and pasted at polling units during the conduct of the 2019 polls.
Its National Chairman, Chief Perry Opara, who made the remarks while speaking with newsmen in an interview in Abuja, however tasked the electoral boss to use the conduct of the July 14, 2018 governorship election in Ekiti State as a guide for 2019.
According to him, “Parties are campaigning indirectly looking for members, people to run for election under their political platforms. Today INEC has just held a consultative meeting with registered political parties and announced some improvement on the 2019 election.
“One of them is that results will be announced at polling units and pasted at the polling units, so that in one hour the news of the result will hit the situation room of every political parties.
“So this makes it easier and it also reduce rigging because rigging is usually done from the polling units to the collation centre; the distance between the polling units and the collation centre is where the magic happens.
“So you don’t need to wait till you are physically present at the collation centre to know the result of an election at a particular polling unit because we are at the era of smart phones where things can be sent instantly and immediately via the internet.”
Chief Opara, however charged that, “We want that to be seen at the Ekiti election in the next ten days. We also want it to be seen in the next 80 days in Osun State governorship election so that Nigerians will have this sense of fulfilment so that yes when they go and vote in 2019 that their vote will count.”
He added that, “There is no community in Nigeria that you don’t have network, even where you don’t have network the neighbouring community will have, there is no part of Nigeria today where they don’t use telephone.”
