The senate yielded to the clamour of the Nigerian populace recently, over the amendment of the extant and not too-good Electoral Bill, as contained in clauses 43, 52, 63 and 87, respectively.
Though, subject to the presidential assent which still remains a bureaucracy to the perfect action of the senate. The new clause 52(2) of the Electoral Act allows the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to gain its full potential as a neutral body saddled with the responsibility of announcing election results. Not only that, it will also indulge a transparency and eliminate god- father’s desire as practice In the former imperfect one that is dilly-dally in nature.
The former Electoral Act Bill cages INEC from exercising the “independent” that bears its name. At least, reversal of the senate stance before on the Bill last week Tuesday rekindled the people’s lost hope in the current administration.
Not only that, the amended Bill clause 87(1) gives room for a direct primary in the selection process of a party’s candidate, although it went through several debates before it was later supported by the majority. This one too was actually fantastic because it will attract the receded true democracy in the country back, on one condition, if the political parties can whittle their usual internal crisis in the course of nomination of their candidate.
Nonetheless, what the aforesaid portends are yet to be absolved by no one. It seems the paroxysm of the senate’s sagacious action has tranced away people from considering the moribund situation which may serve as an obstacle for a hitch free transmission of election results electronically.
And even if the INEC later settles for electronic voting since they have been unleashed by the National Assembly, there are; erratic power supply, illiteracy among the majority of Nigerian adults and an ever bad network.
Nigeria wants to scamper to catch nonstop nordic sister countries in the western world whose pace is very wide in terms of technology not to talk of others. According to the National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non formal Education (NMEC), 35% of the nation’s adult population is illiterate. The average power supply in Nigeria is 3,851 megawatts as reported by Electricity Generating Companies.
In America, their electronic voting involves touch screens to read paper ballots, scanners to verify signatures on envelopes of absentee ballots and web servers to display tallies to the public. Aside from voting, there are also computer systems to monitor voter registration and display these electoral rolls to the polling place staff.
Another problem that may arise in the course of electoral transmission of results is the problem of hackers. Nigerian politicians love politics more than anything else as a result of the whooping incentive. A candidate that desires political power by all means can deploy hackers that will divert the election results. If Donald Trump can claim election rigging, like machine tampering, mysterious votes appearing out of nowhere that allowed Joe Biden to steal election in the last United States 2020 presidential election though, his assertion was baseless, so if type of allegation can come out in the country we revere for practising a true democracy, what about Nigeria?” This election is about great voter fraud, fraud that has never been seen like this before.” He said this, in his 45-minute address posted on social media. That is directly telling us that no election is perfect and in one way or the other, the desire to get political power is the crave of the majority of the people.
As Anambra gubernatorial election is fast approaching, INEC has a long way to go, if it truly wants to transmit election results electronically as it was empowered. And various groups like Action Democratic Party (ADP) and the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights have already been calling on INEC to use November’s election in Anambra state to test-run the technologically driven process ahead of the 2023 election.
All in all, electoral education and awareness is important this time around so as to prepare people for the new normal dimensions. The identified hindrance may be looked into, so as to avoid smokey portents in the future of the new normal method.
Abdullahi, a campus journalist, writes from the University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara state
