The Independent National Electoral Commission will hold a field-testing of the Smart Card Readers on Saturday (today).
This was confirmed in a statement Friday by Kayode Idowu, the Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega.
The field-testing, which will hold in 225 polling units and 358 voting points across 12 wards in 12 states of the country, is to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technology, which will be used for the first time in the electoral process.
The concerned states are Rivers, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Taraba, Kano, Kebbi, Nasarawa, Niger, Lagos, Anambra, Delta and Bauchi.
One local government area has been selected from each of the listed states for the exercise.
According to the statement, the exercise will take place in Port Harcourt City (Rivers), Abakaliki (Ebonyi), Ado Ekiti (Ekiti), Gassol (Taraba), Kumbotso (Kano), Bunza (Kebbi), Kokona (Nasarawa), Shiroro (Niger), Ikeja (Lagos), Aguata (Anambra), Oshimili South (Delta) and Jama’are (Bauchi)
The statement further disclosed that a total of 171,857 voters will take part in the mock exercise, which will also involve 1,602 ad hoc personnel and 941 security officials.
It would be recalled that the planned use of card readers by the commission has sparked off controversies between the two major political parties in the country, the Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress.
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