The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, on Wednesday said some unnamed influential Nigerians were involved in double registration during the recent voter listing.



Jega, who also vowed that the commission would soon commence their prosecution, said these at the National Summit on Free and Fair Elections organised by The Nation newspapers in collaboration with INEC in Abuja. However, the INEC Chairman did not name the high profile registrants. But he revealed that the double registration of voters was recorded in all the 36 states of the federation, including Abuja, adding that the commission’s AFIS software helped to detect such cases.



“Many people did not believe us, some of the politicians in fact thought INEC had no capacity to check double registration. I must tell you that we even caught some high profile double registrants, and we will be able to start with them in the area of prosecution.



“We have done all the collation, we have done all (with) the software we were using. Many people who didn’t think we had the capacity, but like I said, we’ve got the best software for checking double registration.



“This software checks duplication of names, duplication of photographs and the duplication of fingerprints. So, it caught any of these or all of these where they occurred. Where you have double photographs and double fingerprints, then you know that that is a 100 per cent case of wilful double registration,” he said.



Jega, however, assured that cases of double registration were ‘statistically’ insignificant in relation to the 67.7 million registered voters. The INEC boss, who said the number was not up to one per cent of the number of registered voters, also noted that the commission was aware of similarities in the names of people in different parts of the country.



He stated that INEC was being cautious not to disenfranchise eligible voters. He also assured that unlike in the past, governors and ministers would not be allowed to move around with security aides during elections beyond the polling unit where they cast their vote.



On security, he said the commission had reached an agreement with all security agencies on the role to be assigned to each of them. The INEC boss also decried the growing number of court orders served on it by candidates.



He said, “There are, as I speak with you now, over 200 cases that we are confronted with. Over 70 of them were exparte orders given to us.



“Really, some of them defy logic or reason, but we have pleaded with the appropriate authorities. We all know (that), we have a history, we want to get it right and we are doing our best. But we know in 1993 how these kinds of judgments created problems and in fact obstructed the process. It is absolutely necessary that we begin to address some of these things.”



He enjoined government, political parties, politicians and other stakeholders to muster the political will to respect electoral laws. Jega also decried the ‘do-or-die’ mentality of some politicians, adding that a zero sum attitude to elections would not help in deepening democracy.



Jega recalled that in November 2010, he had written to President Goodluck Jonathan and the leadership of the National Assembly on the need to adopt the recommendations of the Justice Mohammadu Uwais-led Electoral Reform Committee, especially on the possibility of establishing an Election Offences Tribunal.



He added, “It is a very unfortunate mindset.



Politicians ought to have enlightened self-interest. The associated problem is impunity because they feel confident that they will get away with whatever they do.



“But for the first time, we are saying that if you violate the law, we will have the capacity to apprehend and prosecute you. It is very difficult for us as INEC, that as we are doing our best with the issues revolving around the management of elections, to also be dealing with issues of offences and their prosecution.



“We are doing our best now. Ultimately, I believe that we will have to back to the recommendations of the Uwais Committee on Electoral Reform about the need to establish an Election Offences Tribunal. It is very important that we have such a tribunal, hopefully, with people of impeccable integrity who can handle such matters.



“Luckily, the Nigerian Bar Association has established a partnership with INEC and they have good teams of lawyers who are willing to offer their services free or at minimal cost to facilitate the job of INEC in the task of prosecuting electoral offenders.”


http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art201103032381095

Mr. Jega, at your age, what are you afraid of that you can not name those highly placed Nigerians that registered twice? If you can’t simply name those high profile Nigerians that registered twice, how are we sure you won’t be scarred to name potential politicians that rigged the election when you finally conduct the elections?

Democracy dividends CANNOT be obtained through ACN - Autocrats Congress of Nigeria- old men imposing their wives, kids, in-laws, relations and maybe even househelps on their party members.
Progress CANNOT come from ACN- Alliance for Corruption in Nigeria with Tinubu as their leader and Achike Udenwa as frontliner.
Shine your eyes(and ask your folks & friends do likewise), identify, scrutinise, select and mobilise support for your national and state assembly legislator candidates on individual merit basis NOT blindly on party basis.

“This software checks duplication of names, duplication of photographs and the duplication of fingerprints. So, it caught any of these or all of these where they occurred. Where you have double photographs and double fingerprints, then you know that that is a 100 per cent case of wilful double registration,” he said.



Mr Jega fall my hand oooo,Even with excel you can eliminate duplicate names,why all this holla ballo about one useless software that he has been shouting about does he think all Nigerians are as dump as the politicians,this man is honestly going to fail in grandstyle,
First it was DDC machines that couldnt read old peoples finger print,by now we expect full explanation on the hickups of the machines who has been sent to jail.

we sit and await the next election.

Jega should stop all the holla ballo of the software nonsense,even a secondary school graduate can write programmes.

@shagaman

Shutup you fool. So he shouldnt be proud of the software he works with? Just because you know about softwares or you can write an 'HelloWorld' program does not give you the right to talk nonsense. What software have you written? Idiot

Tell jega to keep quiet, what if all those double entry were made when that their fake DDC machine were having problem.

@Shagaman,

Software has the capacity to remove corruption from Nigeria by catching criminals using their fingerprints and biometric data. Many other countries are enjoying the dividends of AFIS software.

For Example, read this report from Australia Police:
http://www.policensw.com/info/fingerprints/finger15.html

DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF TECHNOLOGY

Read more about AFIS software:

1. http://www.swiftbiometrics.com/en/fingerprint-software/expressid-afis-software

2. http://www.neurotechnology.com/mm_sdk.html

shagaman:


Jega should stop all the holla ballo of the software nonsense,even a secondary school graduate can write programmes.

Excel is too small to compare with AFIS software. Excel is a general spreadsheet software but AFIS is a specialised software for managing identity.

Programming is not for children, it requires high analytical skill and logic. Do not be deceived by people who do not know the value of software.

Where I registered, some people were made to undergo the same exercise twice because the electoral officer were unable to save the data after they have finished capturing the people data. In such situation, I won't be surprised if it shows up as double registration whereas it was the hardware that led to it.
Nonetheless, i think we are making progress irrespective of how slow it is.

@worldbest

I believe you should be responsible enough to read between lines,i shouldnt scoop so low to respond to your insults, we are way apart,guess you just have access to 10 minutes internet and you really wanna write something,

@beknown


I really respect your views,i am not underestimating the use of softwares,AFIS is a fantastic package,however my point is simple the elimination of duplicate names and pictures should start from the point of the registration only if it was properly planned.

An online database should have being created for the country which helps to keep track of changes and records.

me saying a secondary school graduate can write programs is just an expression,we all know the technicalities involved in this,the fact just remains in Nigeria we like to do things all over again.

Until the country creates a central database we would continue turning towards the same direction.

SHAGAMAN

Get your tenses and spellings right before you criticize a Professor. Giant achievements start with little beginnings, he has started something at the least chikena!

shabbie:

SHAGAMAN

Get your tenses and spellings right before you criticize a Professor. Giant achievements start with little beginnings, he has started something at the least chikena!

then go and ask that clueless and failed Prof of yours d percentage of those that registered in the just concluded Inec registration exercise,
Prof my foot
rubbish

foyeks2001:

then go and ask that clueless and failed Prof of yours d percentage of those that registered in the just concluded Inec registration exercise,
Prof my foot
rubbish

Simple maths my dear. What percentage of 140mill is 67.7mill
I bet you can do that

I won't be surprised if Peen De People (PDP) registered the Late Unaru Yar Adua and even his dead brother as well. Nor be Nigeria, isssh .

shabbie:

Simple maths my dear. What percentage of 140mill is 67.7mill
I bet you can do that

its all lies, ur prof is a pathological liar
I for one did not register, all my family members residing here in Abuja did not register
80% of FHA, Lugbe Abuja resident did not register, even in Kubwa

If high profile Nigerian's registered twice, o ya arrest and prosecute them na!!!!

Why does it have to be duplicate? Is there no case of triplicate or more? I did hear of a particular dude who registered twice. His reason being that he did not like his facial appearance in the first picture taken

I guess many of you need to read in between the lines and understand simple English, Logic and Software application reasoning. Especially you Shagman screaming Excel.

wales:

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, on Wednesday said some unnamed influential Nigerians were involved in double registration during the recent voter listing.

The INEC boss, who said the number was not up to one per cent of the number of registered voters, also noted that the commission was aware of similarities in the names of people in different parts of the country.

Tell me if Excel will not reduce the number of registered voters to 5 or is that not your plan?

foyeks2001:

its all lies, your prof is a pathological liar
I for one did not register, all my family members residing here in Abuja did not register
80% of FHA, Lugbe Abuja resident did not register, even in Kubwa

Shame on you for not registering.
As for the 80% others you mentioned, you sound like the "pathological liar", because you cannot prove it.

I thought he said initially that its not possible to register twice, that the data capture machine could identify multiple registers. This Jega will end up in jail, i swear

shabbie:

Shame on you for not registering.
As for the 80% others you mentioned, you sound like the "pathological liar", because you cannot prove it.

shame on me, aren't u in this country, when peeps go out to put down their names around 1,2,3,4am
I also tried that, left my house around 12midnite, put down my name, went back to sleep, went back there as early as 6.30am, only for me to be told that they were not gonna start with d new list, that they will start from 2days before's list, of which contained over 900names, a day before list contained about 840names, went back to my house angirly, I vowed neva to risk my life again,
so can u now see that failure begot failure
GEJ is incompetent, so he begot Jega
Jega will also beget d worst elections Nigeria can neva imagined, cos nothing good can never come out from that man

N:B
haven't u heard that Jega promised us(many of us that couldnt registered) that there wld be another registration exercise after the general elections against 2015, always get ur fact right
Seems u are not in this country sef, Olodo like u, manwoman relative of Jega

@thweraja10 and i deylaff, i second u

the truth is: Jega has failed Nigeria!!! i thought the fingerprint part is to avoid double or triple registrations

@worldbest and shabbie, this is a public forum, and we are all entitled to our opinions but the truth is always obvious. even if the person in question is ur father, just gives us proofs and dont insult other forum members

HAba the guy dom try no be small, all the data that INEC have can be use for other purpose, Rome was not built in a day !!!

foyeks2001:

shame on me, , I vowed neva to risk my life again,
Seems u are not in this country sef, Olodo like u, manwoman relative of Jega

That is disappointing love. You vowed not to risk your life for your country? JEGA did not ask to do this job remember? You want to be as good as US? You know what they do? The citizens risk their lives for the country.
What can you do for your country?

JEGA my father or not, he is working at something to make it a better place. so since you are not registered now, do it for 2015.

Gej may be there!!

JEGA is what Yorubas call Jiga, simple as, educated but not streetwise, he has bn boxed into thjis job believe me, Edo State result was just the icing on the cake

How can standalone machines detect double registration? Does it make sense?
Some of the arguments saying Jega said the DDC's could detect double registrations are either lying or wilfully tarnishing Jega's good name.

Standalone machines are basically dummies that will swallow any registration attempt. The only opportunities to detect double registrations would come during or after the data has been synchronised. And that is basically the process Jega is telling us the data is going through. It is also the safest way to collect data that includes numerous falsifications; those falsifications remain local to the machine.

Please, lets stop carrying backyard gist and abusing Jega, its not a clever thing to do. Nigerians, blame yourselves and the all pervasive love for cheating.

I think he has to name them, this will prove that is capable of name them too, if the try to get involve in any irregularities during election.

this is the problem with our country men, prof. Jega has not travel this road before so let him learn.
we should give them pass mark despite their lapses.

We know their best is not good enough but common we would get there some day.
it will keep getting better and better.

mr.perfect:

I think he has to name them, this will prove that is capable of name them too, if the try to get involve in any irregularities during election.

A wise man will not tell you what he will do now until that time.
Abiola said all he will do they didnt allow him so Jega will save his strenght till the end to give nigerian the true result, just like Nwosu did in 1993

wetin you expect before? Na these big men wey understand Naija wella, they don see say na Jega Jega we go do for April. So it won't hurt too do it well. Let's bet it nothing shall come out of Jega's noise. He will omly carry a few wannabes do his Jega jega make e look like say e do anything.

disclose their identities