- Omo-Agege justifies rejection of e-transmission clause
- Canvasses stiff sanctions against electoral offenders
By Gboyega Akinsanmi and Adibe Emenyonu
Amid controversies over the inclusion of the electronic transmission of results clause in the Electoral Amendment Bill, a document commissioned by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in 2020 put 2-G network coverage at 89% of the country’s population.
Despite the indisputable statistics in the document, the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege yesterday defended the decision of the Senate to reject the clause at the convocation lecture at the Benson Idahosa University, Benin City.
Fresh facts about the country’s internet coverage status are contained in the Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020 – 2025, a 100-page document that detailed how Nigeria could achieve 90% national broadband coverage of its population by 2025.
The Minister Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami had inaugurated the Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020-2025 Presidential Committee on December 16, 2019 following the directive of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The committee is chaired by Founder/CEO, MainOne, Ms. Funke Opeke and has 32 industry stakeholders and representatives of key government agencies, supported by non-governmental and civil society organisations along with development partners.
The document, which was jointly forwarded by President Muhammadu Buhari and communication minister, revealed that mobile coverage across the federation grew upon the issuance of digital mobile licenses (DML) to operators that initially deployed 2-G technology to provide voice services and effectively covering greater than 89% of Nigeria’s population today.
Already adopted with a view to achieving at least 90% national broadband coverage by 2020, the document read in part: “Demand for Internet access and availability of spectrum has stimulated the growth in 3-G services, which covers about 75% of the population.
“4-G deployments have been limited to deployments in the major urban areas within the past three years and are currently available to approximately 37% of Nigeria’s population,” the document revealed deploying diverse Nigerian maps to graphically extrapolate the spread of internet networks nationwide.
Even with 3-G coverage, the document further explained that most areas of the federation “are only being served by one of the operators while 4-G remains sparse beyond the very largest urban areas and state capitals.”
Consistent with statistics, industry players claimed that at present, the national broadband coverage would have grown above the 2019 national status detailed in the Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020 – 2025.
At the Benson Idahosa University yesterday, Omo-Agege debunked claims that some senators voted against electronic voting and the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to transmit election results electronically.
The deputy senate president explained that the ninth Senate was fully in support of electronic voting and electronic transmission of results.saying there was no ambiguity in the position of the lawmaker of the green chamber.
He said because the country has 43 percent internet coverage, while the other 57% has no internet coverage, there was a need to maintain a uniform electoral system.
Omo-Agege said: “In order to maintain a uniform electoral system. The country has to wait for the approval of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for the country to adopt electronic transmission of election results.
“As we speak, the country has just 43 percent internet coverage while the remaining 57 percent does not have internet coverage,” the deputy senate president said.
His position is however contradicted by the Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020 – 2025.
In the convocation lecture titled, “Nigeria’s Democratic Experience Since 1999: the Imperative of Reforming the Electoral Process”, Omo-Agege called for stringent sanction against electoral offences perpetrators in order to safeguard the sanctity of the nation’s electoral process.
He said regardless of the source, electoral offences perpetrated by officials of the Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs), political parties, candidates and voters have to be tackled frontally to safeguard the sanctity of the nation’s electoral process.
Omo-Agege also observed that another obvious challenge to Nigerian democracy is what he described as the judicialisation of Nigeria’s electoral process.
He noted that this challenge “is a big source of erosion of citizens’ confidence in the electoral process that the courts rather than members of the political parties or the electorate as the case may be, determine winners of party primaries and elections even when the evidence runs to the contrary.
“Examples of judicial decisions that assault the heart of democratic politics are legion. The point here is not to question the role of the courts since electoral justice and the adjudicatory process are recognised as parts and parcel of the electoral process.”
Omo-Agege, however, lamented the widespread perception that the judiciary lacked independence from the executive and that people paid for judicial outcomes in the federation to advance their personal and group interest.
The deputy senate president observed that this perception raised a question mark about the legitimacy of some elected public officials.”
He, thus, said the country “needs to urgently address the members of the political class to observe the letters and the spirit of the rules of the game and for the judiciary to be aware that its perception as the temple of justice and the defence of the common man will contribute to the durability of the country’s democratic process.”
