Why Our ICT Director Was Redeployed Before 2023 Elections – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has justified the transfer of its director in charge of Information Communication Technology (ICT), Chidi Nwafor, who was transferred a few months before the 2023 general elections.

Following the failure of INEC to upload results of the February 25 presidential election from the polling units to its portal in real time, there have been speculations of what could have gone wrong, with many saying that the commission missed the expertise of Nwafor.

However, speaking on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, INEC National Commissioner, Festus Okoye, insisted that the commission is built in a way that no department is wrapped around an individual.

“The present leadership of the commission wants to build a professional organisation that is not wrapped around one individual. The individual (Nwafor) mentioned is a very good friend of mine; he is a director in the commission and any director can be posted out or to go and become an administrative secretary,” Okoye said.

“Now the time we readjusted list of administrative secretaries was the time the commission was slightly panicky on whether we were going to have new resident electoral commissioners and we were preparing for elections.

“So, the commission decided in its wisdom that we are going to post our best hands to the various states as administrative secretaries to go and prepare the states for the purposes of election and that was exactly what the commission did.

“We have a department in charge of ICT and the Chidi I know tried to build a department that can stand on its own whether he is there on not and that is the same thing with every department,” he added.

Okoye attributed INEC’s inability to transmit polling units results directly to its portal in real time as it promised before the elections to “technical glitches” which he said have been rectified ahead of the March 18 governorship and state assembly elections.

He assured Nigerians that the commission’s Result Viewing Portal (IReV) will  be functional during the March 18 elections.

(TNT)