Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Juga, has disclosed that local and foreign observers for the 2015 general elections should be ready to cater for their security.

Professor Jega said this at a one-day workshop titled “Electoral observation outside Nigeria; Lessons learnt.” He told participants that the commission would only engage security agencies for the overall conduct of the elections.

According to him, only Venezuela prescribed areas where observers should visit. “What we do in Nigeria is to liaise with the security agencies to give security, provide security for the overall conduct of the elections, the observers can make their own security arrangements.

“We even have some countries like India that do not allow anybody to observe their elections. However, we accept that the presence of the foreign observers will add credibility to the outcome of the elections.”

Jega said members of his commission have visited about 16 countries to observe elections, as a way of organizing credible polls in 2015.

According to him, the application of latest Information communication technology has helped in most countries, especially in the developed ones, to ensure credible elections and politicians in those countries don’t take elections as a must win like what is happening in most African countries.

“Technology has helped to remove some logistics problems which INEC will take lessons from, but I must add that the use of technology in Nigeria would be difficult in the collation of results so as to avoid what happened in Kenya where a lot of crisis ensued because of that. In matured democracies, even ordinary A4 paper is used as ballot and nothing happens,” he stated.

National Commissioner in charge of Election Monitoring and Observation, Dr. Ishmale Igbani, said in his address that the biggest challenge facing the commission is how to conduct a free, fair credible, transparent and clean election in 2015. He encouraged concerned people to work and rise above challenges to achieve credibility in 2015.