Senator representing Bayelsa West, Seriake Dickson, has said electronic voting is the best for Nigeria’s electoral system, noting that the manual process gives room for human errors.
Dickson, a former governor of Bayelsa state, spoke on Friday during a panel discussion on electoral reforms organised by ActionAid Nigeria.
He expressed shock that Nigerians, after two decades of democratic governance, could still be having long debates on electronic transmission of election results.
“I am shocked that in this country, and at this age, we are having arguments, disagreements, and fears about the transmission of election results that are conducted manually, counted manually, and entered into result sheets manually, yet people have concerns about transmitting such results electronically,” Dickson said.
He cited India, with a population of over 980 million registered voters, and the electoral commission’s integrity in conducting elections without abusing the public trust.
“They conduct elections freely and fairly, with minimal challenges, in spite of the diversity—ethnic, religious, and geographic—and the sheer size of the country,” the senator said.
According to him, India has a million polling stations, as opposed to Nigeria’s 176,000 polling units.
He insisted that what is best for Nigeria is electronic voting because “excessive paperwork gives room for all kinds of interventions, interferences and human failures”.
He called on civil society groups to work with the national assembly in driving the process towards electronic voting, where people can vote in their various polling stations and have their votes recorded and monitored in real time.
Dickson said the urge by Nigerians to monitor their votes in real time is a legitimate call but noted that the current system has not yet accommodated it.
“We are dealing with the next available option, which is electronically transmitting the manually voted and entered result sheet, EC8A, to a server—yet there are still arguments. It is a pity. It is an indictment of who we are and where we are,” he said.
He renewed calls for the adoption of the house of representatives’ version of the Electoral Act but was quick to add that irrespective of whichever version is adopted, the general rule now accepted by both versions is the electronic transmission of Form EC8A from the polling units.
He further urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to come out with clear guidelines on the electronic transmission of results from polling units.
He also stressed the need for all Nigerians to be on board to ensure that the electoral system is cleaned up.
“Elections have belittled Nigeria for so long,” Dickson said.
He noted that instead of unifying Nigeria and renewing its leadership, elections have become periods of deep division and unnecessary man-made contrived crises.
“With the surging youth population and the lack of focus on education and skills, we hope the situation does not arise where the mishandling of elections leads Nigeria into a major crisis. We hope that day does not come,” the lawmaker said.
“Don’t give up on our democracy. Don’t give up on elections. Organise and mobilise.”
