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INEC May Consider Body Odour For Voter Verification

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As part of its growing desire to integrate technology into Nigeria’s electoral process, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, might, in the foreseeable future, adopt the use of body odour for voter verification.

Some years ago, voters were verified by simply looking at their paper cards and checking the voter register.

In 2012, however, INEC introduced the Smart Card Readers, SCR, to verify the Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs, which contained the facials of voters.

It was the period that INEC also used the Automated Facial Identification System, AFIS, to clean up the voter register.

As politicians developed ways of subverting the procedure, the electoral umpire went a step further to introduce the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, which verifies both the facials and the fingerprints.

This development also entails INEC using the Automated Biometric Identification System, ABIS.

However, speaking on Tuesday at the Chatham House in London, INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, hailed the commission’s in-house engineers for the design of the BVAS and for always coming up with innovative ideas and designs to enhance the electoral process.

According to him, an engineer at the commission had proposed using body odour to verify voters, but he had to ask them to tarry awhile.

‘How does your dog recognise you
Yakubu said: “The clean up of the register was painstakingly conducted by the commission because of the Automated Biometric Identification System, ABIS.

“Before now, the commission used the AFIS, the fingerprint identification system.

“But this time around, we used the ABIS, meaning both fingerprint and facial, and that is what we are also using to accredit voters on election day.

“All these innovations were all the work of INEC’s own in-house engineers in the commission.

“The machines may have been fabricated outside the country, but the design of the machines was done by our own engineers in-house.

“In fact, one of them said they were going to introduce a new biometric using body odour.

“I said, ‘please, not yet. Let’s make haste slowly. But when he explained it to me, it sounded logical.

“He said, ‘Don’t laugh, Chairman, because I said body odour is also biometric’.

“He asked, ‘How does your dog recognise you? It is from your body odour and that is why if another person walks into the house it barks, but when you move into the house, it wags its tail because it recognises your body odour’.

“I said, ‘but for elections let’s wait, not now’.”

Tags: BVAS, election, INEC, Electoral, politicians, House

Related Topics:BVAS election Electoral House INEC politicians

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Speaker Tunis Pledges Support For ECOFEPA

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By Gloria Ikibah

Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament, Dr. Sidie Mohammed Tunis, has pledged his unflinching support for the ECOWAS Female Parliamentarians Association Network ECOFEPA in its attempts to increase participation for self-development in politics and entrepreneurship.

Speaker Tunis who stated this at the formal opening of ECOFEPA Women and Youth Leadership symposium, on the sidelines of the Extraordinary Session of the ECOWAS Parliament in Guinea Bissau, with the theme: Unleashing the potentials of Women and Youth in Politics and Entrepreneurship; asserted that the meeting epitomizes the action stage for women’s involvement in decision-making bodies.

He also commended ECOFEPA for always beaming their search light on issues that affect women and youth in the ECOWAS Sub-region and for firmly reinforcing the need to mentor the next generation of decision makers to bridge existing gaps and bestow sound political and decision-making legacies to them, reaffirming that until they as Members of Parliament replicate ourselves in the younger generation in multiple dimensions to deliver a democratic system that is anchored on good governance and societal growth and development, they cannot credit themselves for success.

Dr. Tunis acknowledged that the event amplifies ECOFEPA’s deliberate resolve to consistently pursue the dreams of its founding Members and recommend for members of Parliament to track generational transfer of knowledge, skills and all it takes to tackle the challenges of the future ahead.

In her address, the 2nd Vice President of ECOFEPA, Madam Gabriella Fernandes, commended the ECOWAS Commission for its outstanding support in enhancing the activities of the association to achieve its goals for women’s integration and empowerment in politics.

She said that the resources mobilized by the ECOWAS Commission will allow the association to host its upcoming symposium in Togo March 2023.

Hon. Fernandes reiterated that the symposium will spark the beginning of efforts to launch their projects and synchronize activities in the areas of leadership and entrepreneurship, which have the propensity to boomerang and catapult women’s advancement into decision-making in the ECOWAS region.

Earlier, the Youth Representative for the West Africa Youth Assembly, Mamadu Djalo, said everyone is aware of the social pressure and barriers that women and youth face daily, in trying to climb up to the political power, and employed men in Africa who control the political powers, to ensure that such power is balanced.

According to Djalo, Women and youth are very isolated for too long, and that there is need for the men to work together with both youth and Women to fill the sense of belonging, as the deliberation cannot be realistic without the participation of the youth and women.

She therefore called for the creation of a youth parliament in order to give them a voice.

Tags: Africa, ECOWAS, growth, President, Politics, women

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Again, one injured as container crushes bus in Oshodi

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By Francesca Iwambe

A 20-ft container crushed a commercial bus in the Oshodi area of Lagos State on Wednesday afternoon, injuring a commercial bus driver.

It was gathered that this is the latest container-related accident experienced in the state in the space of three days.

Eye witnessed confirmed that Wednesday’s accident at Oshodi was caused by a brake failure.

While the passengers in the bus were said to have escaped without an injury, the same could not be said of the bus driver whose degree of injury could not be ascertained as of press time.

Eight people were crushed to death by a 20-ft container that fell off a truck in the Ojuelegba area of Lagos on Sunday.

This is coming barely 24 hours after the Ojuelegba tragedy, a 40-ft container fell off another truck in the Dopemu area of the state on Monday, causing traffic on the road.