Ex-INEC chair, Jega seeks unconditional backing for electronic voting

Former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Prof. Attahiru Jega yesterday said that constitutional provision that prohibits the use of technology is a militating factor against electronic voting in the country.

He urged the National Assembly to remove the legal encumbrance to facilitate electronic voting.

Jega also blamed the National Assembly for opposing the use of electronic transmission of results, arguing that the method is cost-effective and easier to deploy.

The political science professor made the call in Ilorin, Kwara State at a lecture organised by Kwara Visioners Network for Rural Development, titled, ‘Politics, governance and leadership recruitment in 21st-century democracy,’

Jega said: “The National Assembly, after 2019 elections, promised to review the electoral legal framework to improve the integrity of the electoral commission. But they are now jettisoning the most important issue that can add value to the integrity of elections because of self-serving interest.

“We have up-scaled the integrity of the Nigerian electoral commission with incremental use of technology. Now we have got to a point where the pilot scheme that has been done in INEC since 2012 of using electronic transmission of results can rarely be used in the 2023 elections. This is a pilot scheme that all the stakeholders have been observing and said is good.

“The next thing is to remove the major hindrance in the use of technology because there is a constitutional provision, which says electronic voting is prohibited. Unfortunately, the National Assembly is opposed to its use.

“From my personal experience in INEC, one of the major ways in which the integrity of the electoral process is undermined is in the manual transmission of results from the polling units to ward, local and constituency levels.”

He added that “if the electoral commission is impartial and tries hard to improve the integrity of the electoral process, if the dominant actors (political parties and candidates) lack integrity and want to win by either hook or crook, they will be undermining the integrity of the electoral commission. That is what we have seen.