Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, who announced the resolution of the matter while receiving the bill from the Electoral Committee chairman, Senator Kabiru Gaya, complained about what he called “calculated blackmail against the leadership of the National Assembly by mischief makers’’.
Hitherto, there had been suspicion that the electoral bill had been tampered with, and civil society groups and concerned stakeholders moved to checkmate the trend.
For instance, a civic society activist, Jibrin Ibrahim, wrote, in response to the Senate President’s talk about ‘mischief makers’; “No, Oga Senate President, there was no mischief, the National Assembly was caught out in its plot, exposed and forced to backtrack on some of its more sinister objectives.
“The struggle (for reversal) is still ongoing, and all citizens of goodwill must remain vigilant to ensure that the Electoral Act is improved, rather than distorted to aid anti-democratic forces.’’
Recall that the debate on the bill had been stuck in controversy over the electronic transmission aspect of the Electoral Act following a clause seeking to prevent the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from transmitting election results electronically.
The National Assembly was nearly split to the middle when the bill was considered in both chambers. Trouble started over the contentious bill when the Senate and House of Representatives received the report on it.
The bill had been laid before the Upper and Lower legislative chambers during their plenary after chairmen of the INEC committees of the two Houses moved a motion.
Experts noted that the most disturbing aspect of the bill was the reported doctoring of the document to eliminate the electronic transmission of results.
It became a hot issue because of the persistent tradition of election rigging in the country.
That was why the idea of sending the results directly to INEC headquarters and to the public from the polling units arose, as a way of checkmating riggers.
Recall that during the Edo State governorship election last year, INEC deployed a results’ viewing portal, which made it possible for the public to see the results as they were announced.
Even President Muhammadu Buhari lauded the Edo governorship poll as free and credible.
Since 2011, many electoral reforms have been carried out that have led to a steady improvement of the quality of elections in the country.
There were widespread reports that the Senator Gaya-led report might have been doctored on the e-voting issue before the protests that instigated a change of mind in the legislature.
Particularly in contention was Section 50 (2) of the Electoral Act which was reported to have been ‘rephrased’ after the completion of the committee’s assignment: “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.”
The only explanation for following this kind of procedure is that there were silent plans to rig.
Trouble peaked when a different version of the bill was uncovered on the floor of the National Assembly, which had probably been tinkered within Section 49 (2) to read: “Voting at an election and transmission of result under this bill shall be in accordance with the procedure determined by the commission.”
That version of the bill defined ‘transmission’ to include conveyance of electoral documents or other electoral information or data by manual, electronic, or other means (prescribed by the commission) from one person to another, one place to another, one stage to another, one process to another, or one system to another, as the case may be”.
In the end, Section 50 (2) of the bill was modified by the leadership of both chambers to read, “Voting in an election under this 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.”
It would seem that the National Assembly appeared unwilling to take the bull by the horns to confront the challenge of electoral democracy via the legislative process in their hallowed chambers.
It would appear that the National Assembly members demonstrated gross insensitivity to the voting pattern surrounding the bill during the debate, trapped in the narrow divide of taking a stance between personal interest and public expectation.
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It is observable that, after the violence-ridden 2003 and 2007 polls, there were agitations for electoral reforms by civic society groups and opposition parties calling for electronic voting, a fruitless effort.
As a result of subsequent failure after the 2007 elections, stakeholders began to renew their demands for electronic transmission of poll results.
Their belief was that votes were usually manipulated between polling stations and designated centers for collation.
With the successes incurred in other sectors where electronic voting had been recorded, such as banking, commerce, and the military, it was believed that e-voting would provide the panacea to confront the challenges of electoral fraud in the country.
But, apart from the challenges of illiteracy, others felt electoral fraud would be more emphasised with e-voting, particularly over the activities of hackers.
However, in all these, we believe that there have been signs that e-voting can still work.
We conclude that the e-voting issue amounts to an unfinished business. We stand that it must be allowed to operate.
