Underage Voters, Sponsors Will Be Arrested, It’s An Illegality, Says INEC Boss

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof Mahmood Yakubu has called on Nigerians to report underage voters to officials of the commission and security agencies.

Prof Yakubu disclosed that underage voting remains an illegality that will not be condoned by the commission, as both the underage voters and their sponsors will be arrested.

He stated this today, February 22 during the final media briefing of the commission in preparation for tomorrow’s general elections.

“Underage voting is an illegality because there is a statutory age or eligibility for registration as a voter, but what you should do is if on election day you find anyone that is apparently underage or conclusively so kindly report any of such to officials of the commission or security agencies underage persons seen or found voting to security agencies. Voting is only open to Nigerian citizens who have attained the statutory age of 18 years”, he said

While warning those who may wish to sponsor underage voters, the INEC Boss noted that the security agencies will deal with them in the event of such.

“Let me seize this opportunity to warn those who may wish to sponsor underage persons to vote on election day that they will be arrested,” the INEC Chairman said.

Responding to a question from an electoral observer, Hassan Sadiq, on the solution in the event of a card reader failing, Mr. Yakubu said there will be a spare capacity to handle such a challenge.

“In the event of complete malfunction of the smart card reader then there is a spare capacity. First we have the area technical support if it’s something that can be fixed they will be fixed, but if it’s something that the smart card readers will be replaced, we have the capacity to replace the card reader

“Failure of the card reader to the commission is not the inability of the card reader to read a voter’s biometrics but some people assume that once a biometrics is not read, the machine has failed. The card reader confirms that the card is not cloned; it’s issued by the commission.

“The card reader confirms that the person who presents it is the actual owner of the card. It’s not a stolen identity. Once the permanent voters’ card is read by the card reader the voter is accredited, the information is saved in the card reader, but the commission took a step higher by authenticating the voter using the biometrics. Remember at the point of registration we captured all the ten fingers” the INEC chairman stated.