Anambra: We Used Technology to Guard Soludo’s Votes from Theft, States ICT Boss
David-Chyddy Eleke in Awka
The Managing Director of Anambra ICT Agency, Mr Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata, has revealed some of the strategies used by supporters of the Anambra State Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo to stop his votes from being stolen.
Soludo had before the election alleged that his opponents had plans to write result in a secret location and get the officials of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to swap them with the authentic result.
Agbata, who spoke to THISDAY, said his agency as a strong supporter of Soludo were also aware of this and worked hard to ensure that they guarded votes garnered by the governor.
“Anambra runs with the mantra, ‘everything technology and technology everywhere’, and that mantra is what guides Mr Governor.
“We as an ICT Agency know this, and we also know that election is a very complex thing, so we decided to look for a way that technology can make things better, and the idea was how to use this technology to manage the process, such that Mr. Governor and our party people can be aware of what is happening in all the 5,720 polling units in the state.
“We also needed a way to ensure that incident reports, results and any other general information was easily captured, that way we had to come up with a strategy where we built a two way system command and control centre, what you may call a situation room, one in Isuofia the governor’s hometown and one in Awka the government house here.
“That way, we were able to police the votes of the governor against theft. You can see these giant screens, it was from here that we coordinated the results, tracked them from polling unit to polling unit, ward to ward and local government to local government.
“The other screen is dedicated to IREV. As INEC was uploading their results, we were also comparing it with what we have on our portal, and also tracking wards where results were yet to be remitted, while our men in the field chased after them to avoid manipulations.”
