Abuja – Mr Abiodun Ajijola, National Coordinator of Election Monitor, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), has called for the review of existing electoral law to address recurring issues of inconclusive elections in the country.
He made the call while making his presentation at a workshop with the theme “Making the Case for the Urgent Introduction of Electronic Voting into the Nigerian Electoral Process’’ on Thursday in Abuja.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the workshop was organized by the NGO and it was aimed at promoting transparent electoral processes in Africa.
Ajijola was of the view that the blame of current rate of inconclusive elections being recorded across the country should not be solely on INEC but on the Electoral Act.
He said that apart from electoral violence and cancellation of results in certain polling units, there were four key causes of inconclusive elections.
The factors, according to him, included imbalance in the application of technology, elections day processes, and low voter turnout on elections day.
Ajijola identified other factors to be relying on registered voters instead of voters who have collected their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) as well as high and tense rivalry among leading political parties.
“While the cases outlined may not exhaust all possible causes of inconclusive elections in Nigeria, these items mentioned here are some of the most germane.
“What is clear from these points is that the current spate of inconclusive elections cannot and should not be blamed on INEC’s administrative or technical competence as is being bandied about in some quarters.
“The primary solution to these issues is the urgent amendment of the Nigerian Electoral Act and modification of some of INEC’s guidelines,’’ Ajijola said.
He suggested that in determining whether an election should be declared inconclusive, INEC should consider the number of voters with PVCs instead of relying on registered voters.
He also suggested that the percentage of the voter turnout in an election should be used to calculate the expected turnout in a re-run election rather than the registered voters.
“It is not expected based on the turnout figures that more than this number of voters will actually turnout for the re-run elections.
“However, these suggestions cannot be done without the amendment of the Electoral Act,’’ he said.
Ajijola said that while e-voting had its challenges, it would be dangerous to cast it away purely on the premise that “Nigeria is not ready” or that “it cannot work in the country’’.
“It would not be out of place to summarise that in spite of the challenges associated with the smart card readers, they have generally had a positive effect on Nigerian elections and have made accreditation in particular much more credible.
“It is clear that electronic voting will impact the Nigerian electoral process effectively if implemented properly and cautiously.
“Even though e-Voting has only been implemented in Namibia (in Africa) fully it has potential for success in Nigeria,’’ Ajijola added.
Mr Babatunde Ogunlaja, an Assistant Director, Development Finance Department, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), said that although electronic voting was capital intensive, the cost of the existing voting should be valued and compared.
Ogunlaja said that the high cost of money being used for production of ballot papers and boxes could be used to buy some of the needed machines for electronic voting.
He also stressed the need to put in place the required basic infrastructure before adopting e-voting.
“It is also important that we start with a demo of electronic voting so that Nigeria can see how it works and also be convinced that it is a trusted system,’’ Ogunlaja said.
In his contribution, Mr Bafunsho Tunde, Chairman, Justice and Equity Organisation, an NGO, said that Nigeria was ripe to adopt electronic voting.
“We must not wait until we perfect the process before we can start e-voting.
“Our aim should be that we should adopt global best practices and strive to be among the best in the world,’’ Tunde said. (NAN)
