The Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) has called on the government to ensure that the person to chair the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should be an engineer if the country must achieve sustainable and positive development in the electoral sector.
President of the NSE, Tasiu Gidari-Wudil, said this on Saturday at a news conference organised by the Society for the commemoration of the World Engineering Day (WED) in Abuja, themed, “Engineering Innovations for a More Resilient World”.
The date, March 4, was officially designated on year 2020 as the World Engineering Day (WED) for Sustainable Development.
The date was approved by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) as a special day to celebrate engineers and the works of engineering every year.
At the conference, Gidari-Wudil said, “70 per cent of the operations of INEC is logistics, that is industrial engineering, the operations; election now is ICT based, technology based, so if you are going to bring a professor of political science or history most of the questions in this field he cannot answer.
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“But if you bring an engineer he will use his experience, I’m sure most of the commissioners are not engineers, so when you talking of logistics and tracing, I can tell you if you put an engineer he will be geo-tagging every ballot box.
“So, if really government is ready to solve problems let them put square pegs in square holes, there are more than 40 fields of engineering, so if you want things to work don’t be afraid to put the right professionals in the right places.
“What we are saying is that the in-coming government should be mindful of this if they want to develop this country. In every political party there are engineers. People with the right competences should put in places.”
Recall that at the recently concluded 2023 Presidential and National Assembly Elections, many of the challenges that faced the commission was due to the late arrival of sensitive materials and INEC personnel coupled with failure of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System machine.
