. ‘E-voting not constitutional’
The umbrella socio-political group for the North, Arewa Consultative Forum, and the region’s youths, under the aegis of the Arewa Youths Consultative Forum, have cautioned the Independent National Electoral Commission against plans to adopt electronic voting for the 2023 general elections in the country.
While the ACF also expressed doubts about INEC’s sincerity to adopt electronic voting system in the 2023 polls because of its drawbacks in a society like Nigeria, the Northern youths warned that if their region would be shortchanged by e-voting, they would have no other choice than to resist its implementation.
Recall that INEC had recently announced that it might try out electronic voting for the 2023 general elections because the several logistics challenges associated with the adoption of the paper-based voting system in the 2019 general elections might become overwhelming for the commission by the next general elections.
INEC had said that it would, by 2023, have to print about three million tonnes of papers and deal with an estimated 100 million voters spread across the length and breadth of the country.
The electoral umpire, which also noted that it had to deal with several logistics issues in the conduct of the 2019 elections, such as overestimation of its capacity and that of other stakeholders meant to convey electoral materials, had argued that electronic-based voting was the practical solution to addressing the logistics and ecological implications of conducting the 2023 election using paper.
It had also expressed regret that the logistics nightmare it was confronted with in the 2019 elections, necessitated the first postponement of the elections, resulting from lack of capacity of airports to lift cargoes that contained huge volumes of ballot papers and result sheets, forcing it to circulate materials by road.
INEC, however, stated that the country had begun the journey to electronic voting with the commission’s full computing of electronic voter register and the conduct of accreditation and verification through smart card readers.
But the ACF Secretary General, Mr. Anthony Sani, told The Point in an exclusive interview at the weekend that the Northern umbrella body was sure that INEC would refrain from adopting any system of voting that is not user friendly and capable of disenfranchising some voters due to their level of literacy.
Sani said although the region would welcome any system that would enable the people to judiciously exercise their democratic rights and ensure their votes count, it would oppose any arrangement that could be detrimental to the interest of the people in the North.
The ACF secretary general said, “Any system INEC adopts through which people can make judicious use of their democratic right and ensure that votes count is welcome. As to whether it is practicable or not is not for me to say, since I am not an expert in electronic voting. But I want to believe INEC would not introduce any system of voting that is not user friendly, and which can disenfranchise some voters on the basis of literacy level.
“If electronic voting is an exclusive preserve of only educated people, and which can disenfranchise a section of our voters on account of level of illiteracy, INEC will not consider it as a viable option in the electoral process for free and fair elections.
“Are you suggesting electronic voting is workable only where literacy level is very high? I do not think so because INEC would not consider electronic voting as an improvement in our electoral process if it is an exclusive preserve for only literate people and disenfranchise illiterate voters. I guess electronic voting is user friendly and can be used by all voters, irrespective of whether they are literate or not. I hope the chaotic problems of electricity and network will not affect the smooth application of the proposed electronic voting.”
Speaking in the same vein, the National President of the AYCF, Alhaji Shettima Yerima, told The Point that the North would resist e-voting for the conduct of the 2023 elections, if it would be shortchanged by the system.
Yerima said that the North would not readily accept any new electoral process that could turn out to be detrimental to its interest, noting that any government policy opposed by the region’s political elite could hardly succeed.
The AYCF president also said that e-voting in Nigeria lacked any legal or constitutional backing as the nation’s lawmakers had yet to take any step on the implementation of such a new electoral process in the country.
He further noted that the “culture of mistrust” in Nigeria would be another drawback for the adoption of the e-voting system for the 2023 general elections.
Yerima said, “The North won’t just jump at any electoral policy. Forget about the fact that President Buhari is from the North. It doesn’t silence the Northern political elite from speaking their minds on any burning issue. If the North will be shortchanged, we will definitely resist it.
“The political class can help Nigerian voters by ensuring that mistrust or suspicion is drastically reduced. The North is no less different from other parts of Nigeria and mistrust of policies is often a Nigerian thing, not just a Northern thing. However, any electoral policy that is rejected by the North is hardly implementable.
“Look through our political history and you will see examples of policies that died on arrival because the Northern political elite fought against it. Let me also say that like Namibia, which has a full-scale electronic voting system, here in Nigeria, the politicians are openly opposed to it.”
