•Omoyele Sowore and Nigerian Senate
Human rights activist and politician, Omoyele Sowore, has claimed that 90 per cent of federal lawmakers and other elected officials would not be elected if elections in Nigeria were conducted transparently.
Sowore made the remark while reacting to the controversy trailing the amendments to the Electoral Act, particularly provisions relating to the electronic transmission of election results.
Yesterday, the Senate amended the Electoral Act to permit the electronic transmission of election results, a move many Nigerians had clamoured for.
However, the lawmakers retained a provision allowing manual collation of results in areas where internet connectivity fails — a clause many critics have described as unnecessary.
Speaking on Channels Television today, Sowore argued that lawmakers are reluctant to enact reforms that would strengthen electoral transparency because they believe such changes would cost them their seats.
According to him, the argument that poor network coverage justifies manual collation is merely an excuse.
“This excuse that there is no network in some states is just another balloon air on the part of these guys. They don’t want transparent elections because if elections are transparent, 90 per cent of them will not make it to the National Assembly — and of course the presidency and other elected positions, they know that,” Sowore said.
The former presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) described the Senate’s decision to retain manual collation of election results as “clever by half.”
He argued that the provision was deliberately inserted to create an avenue to revert to what he called the “hardcoded way of reporting elections,” which, according to him, has eroded public trust in the electoral process.
‘Adopt electronic voting’
Sowore further criticised the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) current IREV system, describing it as outdated. He suggested that Nigeria should adopt electronic voting, similar to the system used in India.
“I said it yesterday and I will repeat it, I am not even a fan of all these old systems. By now, we should be doing what they are doing in India. India has 900 million registered voters and they use electronic voting as their own way of expressing the wishes of the people and those are almost foolproof.
“I don’t think you hear a lot of tribunal sittings in India after 900 million votes and we have only 90 million here, we should be able to go for electronic voting,” he said.
He also questioned why Nigerians cannot vote from home electronically while they are able to carry out other confidential electronic transactions.
