2015: INEC moves to check fraud

Posted by admin Headlines, INEC Politics Sunday, May 4th, 2014

Ekiti loses 108,529 ghost voters, Osun loses 98,824 ghost voters

BY JIDE AJANI
Professor Attahiru Jega’s Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, is moving against fraud in future elections with the full complement of the Advance Automatic Finger Identification System, AAFIS, exercise, which has seen 108,529 voters deleted from the voter register (VR) for Ekiti State.

The governorship election in the state holds on June 21, 2014.
In addition, the governorship election in Osun State, which holds on August 9, 2014, would witness the use of a voter register that has lost some 98,824 voters.

Sunday Vanguard independently and authoritatively discovered that the AAFIS programme of INEC – a process which is on-going – is meant to weed out spurious and frivolous names on the register.

In fact, Anambra State, which reportedly had 2,011,746, in 2011, has now dropped to 1,714,290. What this means is that 297,456 names have been removed from the VR by virtue of the detection of irregular or double registration or the absence of fingerprints, a basic hallmark of the biometric registration.

The in-house clean up, if carried through effectively, was seen by analysts as commendable.
And whereas the process of AAFIS is slow (and should be), it is the surest way to ensure that Nigeria gets a clean and valid VR.

This is not the first time it would be attempted.
Once the AAFIS process is engaged using a cluster of computer systems, polling unit by polling unit, each registered voter’s data is presented and mapped – face, biometrics and all.

Because science has succeeded in putting a lie to crookedness, individuals who had tried to be smart by doing multiple registration would have their names popping up in the system separately (assuming they chose to use fake names).

But the science of AAFIS is that fake biometrics cannot be used.
What INEC has done with the AAFIS exercise is that fake names or faces without biometrics have been completely removed from the register.

(Details of AAFIS operations next week)

– See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/05/2015-inec-moves-check-fraud/#sthash.nUHjzltg.dpufwp_posts