By Jude Opara

On Thursday, the Nigerian Senate passed the much talked about Electoral Act Amendment Bill. The Bill among others is expected to give the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) the much anticipated legal backing to transmit election results electronically.

In Nigeria elections have continued to be contentious with claims and counter claims by politicians of rigging and other forms of manipulations occasioned by the method of conducting the all important exercise.

So the average Nigerian who bears the brunt of the misrule that comes from electoral fraud has sincerely wished and hoped that the National Assembly will eventual pass the Bill to further boost the activities of INEC.

It is instructive to note that this very Bill has suffered series of hiccups mainly because successive administrations have continued to play politics with its passage. For instance in the 8^th Assembly, after rejecting the Bill for several occasions with flimsy excuses of misspellings and wrong punctuations, President Muhammadu Buhari again declined accent claiming it Bill which came to him about three months to the 2019 general elections was ‘too close’ to the elections.

However, the body language of the 9^th Senate concerning the passage of the Bill did not give much hope because contrary to expectations of Nigerians, the lawmakers never took the issue as a priority until many stakeholders and analysts began to question the rationale behind the delay in kick-starting the process.

The Red Chambers mandated Senate Committee on INEC led by Kabiru Gaya to steer its position on the subject matter. The Committee held public hearings on the issue where Nigerians from all walks of life gathered and registered their position. And it is on record that a preponderance of opinion was in favour of the electronic transmission of election results.

But before submitting the Committee Report to the Senate last week, there was a hint that the document had been tampered with as some of vital components of the Bill including the electronic transmission of results were conspicuously missing.

In fact, the reaction of Senate President Ahmed Lawan, while receiving the Bill from the Committee Chairman betrayed an already concluded position to ambush the Nigerian people when he termed the seeming genuine concerns as; “calculated blackmail against the leadership of the National Assembly by mischief makers”.

It is of great concern how legislators of the ruling- All Progressives Congress (APC) were united in shutting down the piece of legislation that could have given INEC the leverage to conduct election in such way that the elements of manipulation would be eliminated to a great essence.

Probably, in order to hoodwink the Nigerian people, the Senate passed the bill but with a caveat that INEC must have to transmit election results electronically only when the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) had satisfied there is enough network coverage.

This development has apparently whittled down the role of INEC as the sole agency responsible for the organization and conduct of election in the country. Already the NCC may have keyed into the gimmick by suddenly declaring that total network coverage in Nigeria is below 50%.

The Senate also ruled that before INEC and the NCC could sanction the electronic transmission of result, they would be notified to ascertain whether such will happen or not.

With the National Assembly limiting the ability of INEC solely control the conduct of elections, there are grave concerns that the 2023 general elections will be in jeopardy because the era of vote padding and other manipulations that usually go on at the collation centres will continue unabated.

Yes in 2023, votes would be counted and declared openly in polling units in front of voters, who would go home believing they have freely chosen their leaders but later before or at collation centres, the numbers would be changed. This necessitated the quest of sending the results directly to INEC headquarters and to the public from the polling units arose.

During the last Edo State governorship election, INEC introduced a result’s viewing portal, which made it possible for everybody to see the results real time as they were announced and this was a bad message for riggers and manipulators. This also increased the integrity of the electoral process and was expected to replicate at the forthcoming Anambra state governorship election on November 6.

According to sources, the contentious Section 50 (2) of the Electoral Act was rephrased, after the Committee had concluded its work as follows; “Voting at an election under the bill shall be in accordance with the procedure determined by the commission, which may include electronic voting, provided that the Commission shall not transmit results of elections by electronic means.”

So, if an election was generally accepted to be free, one wonders why legislators of the ruling-APC were at the vanguard of killing that noble initiative?

Other contentious issues with the Bill are the significant increases on the limits on campaign expenses (S.88). Campaign expenses for the presidential election have been increased from N1 billion to N5 billion; the governorship election, from N200 million to N1 billion and so forth.

For senatorial candidates, they can now legally raise N100 million from the previous N40 million, while candidates to the House of Representative can now accept N70 million from the current N30 million. And for State Assembly, candidates are now free to secure N30 million from the previous N10 million.

These provisions which are anti-people given the fact that these politicians especially those that are currently in power will now begin to amass wealth for the purpose of contesting the future elections. Certainly, there is no denying the fact some of these funds could have been used to provide public infrastructure.

However, one other area of contention of the whole saga is the fact that despite the position of the lawmakers that INEC is not capable of transmitting election results electronically; INEC has come out to declare that it is capable of doing so.

INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education (IVEC), Barr Festus Okoye said the Commission has the capacity to transmit election results electronically from every remote area in the country.

“We have uploaded election results from very remote areas in the six geo-political zones of Nigeria, even from areas where you have to use human carriers to access.

“So, we (INEC) have made our own position very clear, that we have the capacity and we have the will to deepen the use of technology in the electoral process.

“But our powers are given by the Constitution and the Law, and we will continue to remain within the ambit and confines of the power granted to the Commission by the Constitution and the law”, Okoye stated.

In the last elections in Edo and Ondo states, INEC transmitted results electronically using the Z-pad device and many people attested to the fact that those elections were relatively devoid of manipulations and outright rigging, so this further underlines the acceptance of INEC that it can undertake electronic transmission of results.

Many analysts believe that most of the politicians currently kicking against the real time transmission of results are afraid of winning elections in a free and fair contest and may have planned to apply self-help by rigging.

It is even more disturbing that some of the lawmakers from Edo and Ondo also voted against the electronic transmission of results despite the attested successes it recorded in their states in the last governorship elections.

But the greatest irony is that while INEC has consistently shown and even confessed capacity to conduct free, fair and fair elections, the same politicians who are busy plotting how to manipulate the system will tomorrow have the effrontery to turn around to blame the Commission when elections are adjudged to have been below acceptable standards.

Finally, INEC should go ahead and exercise their discretion and conduct the 2023 elections and indeed the forthcoming Anambra state governorship election in such a way that they deem fit and capable of posting the same success result that was recorded in both Edo and Ondo States.

The seeming attempt by the national Assembly to get involved in the conduct of elections is a self help that will not fly because the Section 78 of the Constitution provides that; ‘‘the Registration of voters and the conduct of elections shall be subject to the direction and supervision of Independent National Electoral Commission.”

In the Third Schedule, Part 1,F, S.15, the Constitution has it that INEC has power to organize, undertake and supervise all elections.

The Constitution further provides that INEC operations shall not be subject to the direction of anybody or authority, the amendment cannot be superior to the Constitution.