Owerri- Gov. Rochas Okorocha, who is the All Progressives Congress (APC) gubernatorial candidate in Imo, has expressed reservations over the use of the INEC Card Reader for the ongoing general elections in Nigeria.
Also, Emeka Ihedioha, the Speaker of the House of Representattives and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, expressed his reservations on the use of the Card Reader.
The duo spoke to newsmen in separate interviews in Owerri on Sunday.
Gov. Okorocha observed that the Card Reader was not functioning well and advised that people should be allowed to vote with their Permanent Voters Card.
On the conduct of the election, Okorocha noted that the election went on normally but for efforts by some people to scuttle it.
“So far so good, aside the unwarranted arrests,’’ he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that it took some minutes before the Card Reader could identify the governor during the accreditation exercise on Saturday.
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Also reacting to the use of the Card Reader, Ihedioha through his Public Relations Officer, Mr Chibuike Onyeukwu, said the use of the machine was not successful in some parts of the state.
“It’s obvious that because of our technological difficulties, we are not yet there.
“Because you can see that the accreditation time is lagging. It is not as efficient as it should be.
“I thought it should have been done on a very micro scale to try the card reader process; but interestingly we hear about the incidences of malfunctioning,” he said.
Ihedioha pointed out that the card reader will not give Nigerians what they wanted.
He called on INEC to combine the manual accreditation with the electronic voting in subsequent elections.
“Meanwhile, the turnout for the election is very satisfactory and encouraging,” he said.
NAN reports that INEC is still collating the Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections in Imo as at the time of filling this report. (NAN)
