Emma Okonji
Last week’s amendment of the Electoral Act of 2010 by the Senate, to pave way to Legalise the use of smart card readers for electronic voting (e-voting), has received huge commendation from the Chairman of Zinox Group, Leo Stan Ekeh and other technology industry stakeholders.
Pleased with the amendment, Ekeh said it was apparently a justification of his position on the use of smart card readers for subsequent elections, which he made known to the lower chamber of the National Assembly members, few months ago.
Ekehsaid his position was made known at a retreat organised by the House of Representatives Committee on Electoral and Political Parties Matter held on Friday, May 27th 2016 at the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja where he disclosed that with the rapid pace of technological advancements, “Nigeria stands to reap a lot of benefits from the deployment of e-voting, whose initiative will go a long way in reducing litigations and strengthening the faith of Nigerians in the electoral process.”
Ekeh said the success recorded with the use of smart card readers for the authentication of accredited voters in the 2015 general elections, was massive, hence he suggested in his paper that the law makers should Legalise e-voting, through the use of smart cards in subsequent elections.
President, Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), Prof. AdesolaAderounmu, also commended the Senate for the move, which he said was best for the Nigerian politics and elections in the digital age.
The Senate also empowered the presiding officer at polling units to, in addition to the smart card reader, use any other technological device that may be prescribed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from time to time for the accreditation of voters to verify, confirm or authenticate the genuineness or otherwise of voters’ card.
The passage of the Bill for an Act to Amend the Electoral Act 2010 and for other related matters followed the consideration and adoption of the report of the Senate Committee on INEC. The bill, which passed its third reading, also stipulates that votes and recorded results must be transmitted electronically directly from polling units in an encrypted and secured form.
The amendment is also offering a solution to the ambiguity that may occur in the event a candidate dies after the commencement of elections and before the declaration of a winner by INEC, as was the case during the Kogi gubernatorial election.
According to Ekeh, he had as far back as May 2016, declared through a paper presentation that the time was ripe for Nigeria to deepen its democratic culture through the full deployment of electronic voting during elections.
In the paper titled – New thoughts, ideas and innovations on use of ICT in elections – Ekeh said “the gains recorded with the use of the card readers in the 2015 general elections goes a long way to show that with the adoption of e-voting, the country will take a huge leap towards sound democratic governance.”
A country cannot move forward where the elected leaders who take decisions are not the choice of the people. It’s like running a company and you are a shareholder in that company. If your son is not qualified to lead, you will be destroying that company by manipulating the system to favour that son. So, this was the essence of our submission to INEC on the adoption of electronic voting – that things should be done professionally, Ekeh said.
According to him, “Today, there are about 774 local governments in the country and each one with about 10, 800 polling units, some of which are in the riverine areas. Even if INEC purchases 1000 vehicles, it will still find it difficult, logistics-wise to cover all the areas and this leaves the process open to manipulation by emergency contractors as INEC lacks the requisite man-power.”
With the card technology in place, voters will no longer have to travel back to their wards to cast their votes. INEC can also monitor the entire process easily as each electronic voting device is equipped with a tracker and can be configured to shut down immediately voting ends, Ekeh said.
Tracing the country’s march and transition towards electronic voting, Ekeh explained how the Zinox Group designed the technology and ended up working for everybody in deploying the Direct Data Capture (DDC) machines nationwide including the 600 servers. These, he said, helped to promote the concept of one man, one voter card, streamlined the electoral process and also reduced multiple registration, ineligible and under-age registrants.
