CAN 2015 ELECTIONS BE RIGGED?

Tomorrow the voting for the president of Nigeria begins. How is the process supposed to work? This is the best answer I got from questioning people involved in the elections:

One must have registered and must have collected his/her PVC card and identified the voting place his name appears and arrived at the polling station before the scheduled voting time ends (5.00 pm). All those in line before closing time would vote no matter how long it takes the electoral officers to reach him/her.

Then
You take your card to the identified officer who hands you the actual voting ballot.

You put your thumb at the marked point in the card for your biometrics to be read and you take the card to the closed voting booth and drop it in the box clearly marked for the party you are voting for.

You leave.
The process continues until the official close time plus there is nobody else who had entered the line before the close time.

The results of the voting is announced after the count at the polling station.

The votes are collected for the area and sent to the first collection center usually for the village.

The votes for the villages are tabulated and sent to the town for further collection and tabulation

The votes of the towns are collected and tabulated at the Local Government area.

From the LGA it goes to the state offices for state tabulation

States voting are collected at the zone level 11 All the zones are tabulated at Abuja and result announced from Abuja.

Given the procedure above can Nigeria's 2015 election be rigged. I venture to say Yes and No.

No because:
If all the political parties have enough election monitors to cover all voting places, it would be difficult but doable to pin point where changes had been made from the announced results at the polling centers.

Biometrics information would limit inflation of the number of voters so it will be easier to discard a voting center that has more people than were issued voting cards.

Voting boxes are transferred in secure trucks as they move from villages to towns to LGA and up.

Collation is done in secure rooms in the presence of all parties

All INEC officials are ladies and gentlemen and will not do any harm to Nigeria

National and international observers cannot be fooled

Yes because:
Apart from APC and PDP no other party can muster the estimated 100,000 force to be present in all poling centers and even for both parties a 200,000 loyal and faithful work force would be a gigantic number to hire and train.

Since all ballots are the same except for the biometrics information, boxes could be switched at any of the collection points especially at the initial polling station.

False party boxes could be placed in a polling center with the collaboration of some INEC officials.

INEC officials may see no evil, hear no evil, and say no evil.

National and international observers are human too and therefore subject to human frailties.

There you have it.
May Achihi Achi protect the people of Nigeria (you may substitute God or Allah or your own deity)

Written by Benjamin Obiajulu Aduba.