INEC may review voting rules

The flooding that hit many parts of the country may force the Independent National Electoral Commission to review its rules on voting. This indication was given on Tuesday in Awka at an interactive session for senior officials of the commission drawn from Anambra, Abia and Benue states. The Resident Electoral Commissioner for Anambra State, Prof. Chukwuemeka Onukaogu, said there was need for a review of the rules governing elections in the country given that many electorate have lost their voter cards. He added that INEC documents in some of the local government areas submerged by the floods might have been destroyed. Onukaogu said, “I would enjoin you as you go on to draw a strategic plan for 2012–2016 to focus your mind on how elections would be administered in these areas with our offices submerged by water, with the residents fleeing and their belongings, including voter cards destroyed and washed away by the flood.” He wondered whether INEC could still stick to the rules that say “it is the voter cards only that can admit voters to the polling station when for no fault of theirs, they had lost their voters’ cards.”