By Alex O. Akpodiete Atawa
Now that the elections are over (except for a few re-run elections next week), we should be looking ahead to 2019 general elections. However, before that major election, we must first deal with Bayelsa governorship election in August 2015 and Kogi in December 2015. These two States promise to be battlegrounds for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the new opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Subsequent to these, Edo, Ekiti, Osun, Ondo and Anambra States will pick their respective governors. Governorship elections were held on April 11, 2015 in the following twenty-nine (29) States of the federation: Abia, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara.
Some years back, I wrote a piece titled Electronic Voting for dogs and baboons based on the controversial statement attributed to the now President-elect. In that piece, I inquired as follows What puzzles a lot of us and the countless courageous elderly village women, who stood in line and withstood the elements, to register to vote in early 2011, was why the same technology/methodology (biometrics) was not employed for the actual voting a few months later? The unknown answer to the villagers is that Section 52(1) (b) of the 2010 Electoral Act says: “The use of electronic voting machine for the time being is prohibited.” One wonders if the same honourable members of the National Assembly that passed the Electoral Bill into law were not the same one that approved the huge sums of money for the DDC machines used in the voters registration exercise. Did it not occur to them that they were giving to Nigerians with one hand while taking away with the other hand?”
In all humility, it will seem as though INEC heard me partially because in the buildup to the 2015 elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), decided to utilize the pseudo-electronic voting by using the Smart card Readers (SCR) to accredit voters who had Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs). The PVCs and SCRs were froth with problems, based on inadequate training of ad hoc staffs, but more importantly malfunctioning of the SCR.
Assuming the ubiquitous problems with the SCRs are resolved, it now begs the question, why cant we have complete electronic voting? Pessimists will postulate that those who are afraid of losing elections are the ones against electronic voting. Otherwise, if you are sure of getting the peoples mandate, you will support electronic voting. If as we approach 2019 and we really seek to move forward in our democracy, then we must support complete and full electronic voting.
Also, with electronic voting, we will no longer need our bifurcated electoral process. In other words, accreditation and actual voting will seamlessly appear contemporaneous. Furthermore, reporting of results will be instantaneous. An unbiased observer will admit that delayed collating and release of results encourage fraud. The gap in time makes it susceptible to introduction of fraud and its twin brother called rigging.
Most civilized nations do not have segmented voting process. In fact, even those that have hailed our use of card readers are miffed by the two-prong voting system of Nigeria. In a recent story in Vital New titled Separation of Accreditation, Voting Periods Will Reduce Fraud, we read that the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, has explained his rationale and preference for separating accreditation from voting, especially with the introduction of the controversial PVC readers. He stated that the separation of accreditation and voting periods reduced fraud in the voting process, including double voting. I will respectfully disagree.
The lapse of time allows for manipulation of numbers. Another benefit of electronic voting is that it will make it difficult, if not impossible, to inflate votes. Those questionable Sokoto votes or riverine numbers will be a thing of the past.
The 8th National Assembly will have a majority of APC lawmakers. If they are really progressive, they should progress towards sponsoring a bill to allow electronic voting. The deliberate speed some lawmakers used to authorize use of PVCs could be applied to allow electronic voting, unless there are other ulterior motives for maintaining the status quo.
In conclusion, Nigeria needs electronic voting. Electronic voting, for all intents and purposes, will be a panacea to election fraud. Think about it!
*Rev. Akpodiete Atawa, a public affairs analyst writes from Asaba. Contact him on 08138391661 or Profatawa@gmail.com
