By Emeka Nze
Abuja
Nigeria has pledged to assist the neighbouring Benin Republic develop its Information Technology (IT) towards the conduct of a successful general election in the country, February next year.
Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, made the pledge yesterday when he received a delegation of Benin Electoral Commission led by the Bennenoise Ambassador to Nigeria, Dr. Oyedipo Falaye.
Yakubu attributed the successful conduct of the 2015 general elections in Nigeria to the use of Information Technology.
“The change that made the (2015) election a success was Information Technology, beginning with voter registration, collation and transmission of results.”
The INEC chairman also stressed the need for security in the conduct of an election, “which is necessary for free and fair elections.”
He said: “INEC succeeded in formulating the security system; we have inter-agency committee on security both at national and down to local government level.
There are representatives of Army, the Police and other security agencies, and the security meeting is held on regular basis.There is no free and fair election where there is insecurity.”
Earlier, Falaye, who said the delegation was in INEC “to understudy the secret behind the success” of the commission in the last general elections,” called for areas of cooperation and capacity building between the two commissions.
He commended INEC over the success of last general elections, and said Benin Electoral Commission wants to take it to higher level.
Falaye said their electoral body had been properly constituted with members serving a single term of seven years without a renewable mandate, “which makes it different from the previous ones, who were appointed on ad hoc basis”.
In the delegation were the chairman of Benin Republic Electoral Commission, Prof. Emmanuel Chando, and three National Electoral Commissioners.
The Benin Republic general election holds on February 28, 2016, and INEC promised to share the experiences and ideas that enabled it succeed in the last general elections with the visiting team.