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| Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman |
Speaking on Monday during a retreat organised by INEC for its staff in the general elections in Osun state, Solomon Soyebi, INEC national commissioner, said the commission jettisoned the idea of using a server for this year’s general elections over some factors including the late release of its budget.
He said while INEC experimented with the server in states like Anambra and Osun, it did not adopt it for this year’s general elections.
“We piloted the use of transmission of election results electronically in Sokoto, in Anambra, even in Osun. What happened was that we were trying to pilot to see the desirability of such technology in our electoral process,” he was quoted as saying.
“First, our budget came out very late, there was also issue (with) the electoral act. For these and some other reasons, the commission did not adopt that option. 2019 elections were conducted according to Law.
“We used the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, we used the electoral act and our guidelines for 2019 elections. If you look at the three instruments carefully, the issue of server was not highlighted.
“Once in a while, you will see an experiment going on but we have to pilot it before we will deploy wholesale for election. We did not use it because of circumstances beyond the control of the commission.”