In the wake of a new law to prosecute and impose heavy fines including jail term for election malpractices, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has revealed that it costs the Commission as much as Two Billion Naira (N2b) of the public fund to conduct one Governorship Election in Nigeria.
INEC also said the conduct of any cancelled election cost twice the amount used to conduct the election which was cancelled hence it is wise to clean up Nigeria’s election processes to ensure free, fair and credible elections.
This revelation was made by INEC Director of Publicity and Voter Education; Elder Nick Dazang who was a guest of African Independent Television (AIT) breakfast programme ‘Kakaaki’ on Friday.
According to him it is counter productive for any election conducted by the Commission to be disrupted at any point by anyone because of its economic loss for the country and the Commission.
Said he: “If disruption of elections did not happen, elections are better and everyone is better for it. Unfortunately, everyone loses when elections are disrupted.
“It takes over N2 billion to conduct a Governorship Election in Nigeria. If it is cancelled for whatever reason, another N2b to organise another election. It is public money that will be used to conduct the second election and you spend twice.
” I believe it will be wise to clean up our electoral processes by adopting the technological innovation INEC is rooting for including electronic voting and transmission of elections results.
This will eliminate most of the problems we experience in Nigeria elections”, the INEC Spokesman concluded.
