DIRECT DATA CAPTURING MACHINE VS SIM CARD REGISTRATION MACHINE

                                           

Voter’s registration for the forthcoming election started on shaky note. Initial hitches have to do with the faulty machine and its peripherals. It’s peripheral which include scanner, camcorder, printer and mobile power generating plant plant which is the only major difference between it and laptops used for the sim card registration exercise. Couple with the faulty machine is the inexperience shown by the adhoc staffs of INEC that were recruited for the registration exercise. The inexperience shown by the adhoc staff only shows that they were not given adequate and sufficient training before the commencement of the exercise.

From the above one can deduce that there is no much difference between the two machines except that SCRM doesn’t need a mobile generating plant to function effectively because it has a better and strong battery compared to the ZAUZAU DDCM that INEC has decided to use for this exercise.

I love this country. Nigerians will never get the true picture of things until the stand taken on a particular cause boomerang. Can someone tell me the sincerity of purpose in this exercise? Firstly three companies were given the mandate to supply the DDC Machine. Two of them were able to meet up before the deadline given, while the third one defaulted.Uptil now the company is yet to fulfill its own part of the contractual agreement.

Remember the federal government invested about #87 billion on this exercise, and out of this, #40 billion was actually devoted for the importation of DDC machine, ordinary laptops.Haba!The government made us to belief she’s importing an out of this world machine for the exercise which nigerians thought will stem the tide of election malpractices. No wonder the coining of acronym DDC machine. Nigerians now know that what you brought in were merely Laptops. For God sake!

An indigenous company even participated in the bid, but you rubbished the company and gave it to foreign firms probably to cover your track. Nigerians hope you are already on the trail of the third company that reneges.

Secondly both public and private schools were asked to close down for two weeks for this exercise. The argument put up border on the security of school children, but until now I am yet to see how the school children are involved in this. The thinking initially was that probably they will use schools for the exercise.

Since the commencement of the exercise it has been one form of complain to the other. The exercise was characterized with lateness of the adhoc staff to registration centre, faulty machine, inadequate materials, fighting, beating up of adhoc staffs, stealing of DDc Machine, issuance of duplicate registration card instead of original and non payment of adhoc staff allowance which made them to stay away from most registration centers’ for two days.Infact until now there are some arears where they are yet to see these adhoc staffs. All these have resulted to the inability of eligible voters to register thereby indirectly disenfranchising them to perform their civic rights and obligation.

In one of my write ups I pointed out that professor Attahiru Jega might have good intention, but definitely he cant be everywhere at the sametime.So the issue of security have to be taken seriously because those people that can decide to beat the adhoc staff during registration can do anything during the election proper.

I would like the Professor to tell Nigerians if he was privy to the bringing in of CHINCO laptop of less memory into Nigeria. The laptop’s memory has to be upgraded before it can perform to full capacity.

Before they seek the advice of an expert they came up with frivolous stories that the machine would not capture the data of anyone suffering from one form of ailments. That is a lie.

The exercise will end this week Saturday. There is no way the exercise will not be review in order to accommodate the electorate that are yet to register. Again people are already suspecting that the process is being manipulated by some desperate politicians. Nigerians just have to make sure their votes counts this time around in order to ensure we vote the right people into office and not thugs that have turned our days into nightmare.

On a final note, there is no justification for contracting foreign firms to handle a project that an indigenous company can perform creditably well. We know the pedigree of so many computer firms, Gsm operators, telecom service providers in this country. We know what they can do if given the opportunity to proof their mettle.Atleast we know what they have been able to do with the SIM CARD REGISTRATION exercise. Nigerians are no fools; do not make us the laughing stock of the international community.

Thank you.

Quadri A Kazeem
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***QUADRIAKAZEEM**
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