By Praise Chinecherem
Senator Representing Anambra Central Senatorial District, Dr Victor Umeh has described timely transmission of electoral results as critical to guaranteeing elections credibility and deepening Nigeria’s democracy.
He said delay in election results transmission would only create room for all forms of manipulations.
Umeh spoke at the weekend while addressing a youth group, Catch Them Young Community Initiative (CATYCOI) who were on an advocacy visit to him on what it tagged “Top 5 youth Electoral Reform priorities in Nigeria.”
The reform priorities included establishment of electoral offenses commission; timely transmission of election results; INEC leadership selection process; conclusions of post election disputes before inauguration; interpretation of continuous voters registration provisions, among others.
Commending the youths for their commitment to strengthening nation’s electoral systems, the lawmaker argued that although the reform proposals were not entirely strange, the need to place them on front burner had become expedient especially as the electoral laws were undergoing reforms.
He said, “Electoral reform is a critical process that must be vigorously pursued for a functional and meaningful democracy. If we don’t have transparent process of acquiring power and creating leadership, then nothing will work.
“Our experience in the past election makes the issue of timely transmission of electoral results a worthy project to pursue. When results are transmitted in real time, the election outcome will be certain.
“In the event of any delay, virus can enter the process and jeopardize the real results. As results are generated and transmission everyone will become aware and have possession of them. In the event of dispute, they’ll have recourse to the credible figures and the election credibility will be preserved.
“Regrettably, INEC didn’t keep to its promises in the last election of transmission to the portal. It said it had glitches which brought very monumental controversies to the exercise that led to sabotage of the process.
“Besides it’s a deservice that despite use of technology, we’re still relying on physical witnesses as evidence in election petition tribunal instead of the results generated from the portal which should serve as data base.”
Umeh added, “Making the electoral offences commission to be independent will ensure speedy prosecution of offenders. INEC shouldn’t be the one prosecuting offenders. And I’m sure this will be a popular opinion of the lawmakers.
“Again, resolving all election disputes before inauguration/swearing-in is the most reasonable thing to do. The lacuna in our electoral laws that once a candidate is declared winner and must be sworn-in, whether he won or not should be discarded.
“Otherwise, those who lose election but declared winner will get into office and deploy all funds and powers available to sabotage electoral disputes.
“INEC leadership appointments should be removed from the office of the president because he’s an interested party in all elections and will definitely be biased in choosing the electoral umpire.”
On the continuous voters registration amendment, the lawmaker argued that it was wrong practice to end voter registration once election was over until another election period when the portal would be opened.
“To keep leaving voters who turn 18 daily until election time is a wrong way of doing continuous voters registration. Anyone who turns 18 should visit INEC office with record of his age and should be registered and issued a voter’s card.
“Stringent provisions should be made for failure to register voters. INEC should be made to know that periodic voters registration update is unacceptable. This will assist in saving time lost in preparing for election with its attendant confusions and cards distributions,” he stated.
Assuring the group of circulating the proposals among his colleagues at the red chambers, the lawmaker urged the members not to relent in their struggles, expressing optimism that the Senators would buy into it.
“Youths as engine room of any society are very resilient, tenacious, passionate and ready to secure a better and stable future which they would benefit more from. Well oriented and positioned youth is sine-qua-non to good governance.
“I know not many people are aware of the level of commitment of the 10th Assembly to getting Nigeria work. So many of us there are Progressives and those who want the correct thing to be done.
“Now we have opportunity to review the constitution and electoral laws, we will be able to look at these issues again.
“You may meet frustrations on the way, but I assure you that reasons will prevail sooner than you expect and these issues will find expression in our laws so our democracy saboteurs will be dealt with.
“I’m very pleased with the five areas you’ve selected for advocacy to depend our democracy and culture of good governance. With the type of commitment I’ve seen in young people to foster actions targeted at improving our electoral systems, we’re hopeful for better Nigeria,” the lawmaker opined.
Earlier, Executive Director of CATYCOI, Nonso Orakwe said the decision to visit the lawmaker was informed by his capacity, true representation and influence in decision making at the National Assembly.
“There’s ongoing electoral reform and constitution review in the National Assembly and Nigerians, especially the youths are happy about it, particularly considering the ugly experience of the past election.
“We’re here to engage you as our Senator who has enormous capacity and loud voice to influence decisions at the Senator. Infact, we can’t get this project done without you,” he said.
Also speaking, the Programme Manager, Israel Oji said the “Top 5 youth Electoral Reform priorities in Nigeria” was a product of survey conducted by the group under its Youth led electoral reform project.
“Following our discovery that many youths were not happy with the outcome of the election, we decided to conduct a survey among 4000 youths, with 57 expressing their disappointment over the election outcome.
“We also conducted another survey, both online and physical among 12 fora across the country and 400 youths participated, out of which 87 recommendations were generated which we narrowed to 5 as reflecting the minds of youths across the country.
“It’s our belief that if these recommendations enter into the electoral reform, it’s going to reignite passion of the disenchanted youths in subsequent elections,” he explained.
