Electoral Act: We’re back to square one – Middle Belt Forum

By Peter Duru, Makurdi

The Middle Belt Forum, MBF, says the amended Electoral Act signed Wednesday by President Bola Tinubu has brought the Nigerian electoral process to square one.

Reacting on Thursday to the signing of the Act amid protests by Nigerians, the National President of MBF, Dr. Bitrus Pogu, urged the President and the National Assembly to revisit the law and yield to the demands of Nigerians, noting that the law is defective.

He pointed out that Nigerians want real-time transmission of results from the polling units without human interference and urged the government to submit to the demand of Nigerians.

He said, “We thank God for the quick response of the President to sign the Electoral Act, but quick response to what? The Electoral Act he signed is still defective because there is ambiguity in which one carries precedence.

“For example, we have real-time transmission of results electronically but the manual uploading on IReV is still there.

“So the real transmission is made and then somebody tampers with the result sheet and uploads it on the IReV and then there is a disparity. Now, in that disparity, which one has precedence in court? Will it be the electronically transmitted result in real time, or will it be the uploaded physical paper recorded on the IReV?

“So with this ambiguity, we are still back to square one. People can still rig, change election results on the paper and upload it and when it gets to court, the copies of the papers uploaded may have precedence over the electronically transmitted result and such ambiguity will haunt us.

“Yes, we thank the President for signing quickly by acting on such a request from the Senate but the Senate needs to revisit this. And tell us that yes we have agreed without choice because if it is left to Nigerians our choice is that everything should be electronically transmitted, cutting out any human participation.

“But since it is like that, they should say which one carries precedence over the other in the event there is a court action if the electronically transmitted sheet is seen as having precedence in any legal tussle and not the paper copy which will be uploaded at any given time by the electoral officers which still remains subject to human influence and can be manipulated or mutilated, changed or whatever can be done.

“So we are still in a serious problem. The fact is that there is no community in Nigeria that is not covered by one telecom service provider or the other. And in the event these are not even there we have satellite phones all over the place. And there is no place that is not covered.

“So Nigerians still insist that the amendment the National Assembly made is still short of what Nigerians need. The National Assembly is there to serve the interests of Nigerians and not the interests of the political party in power or whoever is in power.

“So if we want to move forward and not to continue to stagnate, let everything be transmitted electronically and let it remain at that. Cut off all involvement of second or third parties. As votes are being cast electronically, let it also be transmitted electronically and we are all happy with that.”

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