Publisher and human rights activist, Omoyele Sowore, has suggested that many elected officials in Nigeria, including the presidency, got into power through manipulated election results.

According to Sowore, many of the politicians in the country won’t win a free and fair election.

Naija News reports that he made the submission on Wednesday while speaking on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief against the backdrop of the controversy trailing the amendments to the Electoral Act, particularly provisions relating to the electronic transmission of election results.

Recall that after public pressure, the Senate on Tuesday, amended the Electoral Act to permit the electronic transmission of election results.

However, the lawmakers retained a provision allowing manual collation of results in areas where internet connectivity fails.

Reacting to the development, Sowore said the lawmakers intentionally approved the manual clause because they are afraid of losing elections conducted transparently.

He argued that the excuse of poor network coverage is simply unacceptable.

“This excuse that there is no network in some states is just another balloon air on the part of these guys. They don’t want transparent elections because if elections are transparent, 90 per cent of them will not make it to the National Assembly — and of course the presidency and other elected positions, they know that,” Sowore said.

According to him, the lawmakers are only being clever by half.

Be Like India

The former presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) argued that if India, with a population of about 900 million people, can successfully adopt electronic voting, there is nothing stopping the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from doing so in Nigeria.

He added that the current IREV system being used in Nigeria is already outdated.

“I said it yesterday and I will repeat it again, I am not even a fan of all these old systems. By now, we should be doing what they are doing in India. India has 900 million registered voters and they use electronic voting as their own way of expressing the wishes of the people and those are almost foolproof.

“I don’t think you hear a lot of tribunal sittings in India after 900 million votes and we have only 90 million here, we should be able to go for electronic voting,” he said.