Another contestant at the recently held election of two members of the congregation assembly of the University of Ibadan as senate representatives on the joint council/senate selection board for the appointment of the next vice chancellor of the institution, Professor Adesoji Fasanmade has condemned the process.
Professor Fasanmade in a petition, obtained by OYOINSIGHT, to the chairman of the institution’s governing council, Mr. Nde Joshua Mutka Waklek, through the office of the registrar and secretary to council described the election and its result as a manipulated one.
The condemnation by Fasanmade is coming on the heel of an earlier allegation by Professor Ademola Dasylva of the department of English who also contested the election. Professor Dasylva described the election as a process that lacked transparency and was technically compromised.
Professor Fasanmade maintained that his position is on the basis of several irregularities which raise questions about the validity of the entire process and the results announced.
Citing six major reasons, he called on the Governing Council to set up a committee to investigate the electoral process used in this election.
The major reasons he cited range from failure to display the list of accredited voters and disenfranchisement of some senate members from voting to ‘illegal’ conference voting among others.
He also requested that the entire election and the results released should be nullified, and a repeat election should be organized by an external body adding that the repeat election should be monitored by the Joint Council-Senate Committee whose membership will be agreed to by all candidates for the election.
His petition read in parts:
I am constrained to write this letter of protest as regards the election above which held on Monday September 21, 2020.
My position is on the basis of the following irregularities which raise serious questions about the validity of the entire process and the results announced:
1. The list (and details) of eligible members of Senate who had been accredited to vote in the election was not displayed (hard copy or electronically) before the election to enable confirmation of details and validation of those eligible to participate in the election.
2. The list of candidates (along with their sponsors and supporters) confirmed as validly nominated was not displayed (hard copy or electronically) for scrutiny and records of Senate Members/entire University at any time before the elections.
3. An, as yet, undetermined number of Senate members were disenfranchised from voting as they did not receive the email containing the link to the voting platform on the day of the election. This, despite having received the link for the ‘mock elections’ a couple of days before. When some of such voters enquired about the reason for this from the organisers, they were informed that this was due to ‘errors’ at the point of entering their email addresses. This suggests that email addresses were not uploaded directly, but were entered manually which makes it difficult to exclude ‘selective entry’ of voters’ email.
4. The distribution of the votes in the final result released does not follow the binomial distribution expected of ‘free and fair’ elections. Indeed, it is unprecedented that the two candidates earlier identified as being ‘candidates’ for a particular applicant would receive 60% of all votes cast, leaving the remaining seven candidates sharing the remaining 40% of votes.
5. My ‘end-of-voting poll’ suggests that I should have received more than the number of votes ‘allotted’ to me.
6. There are confirmed reports of ‘conference voting’ in some offices on Campus. This violates the most important principle of ‘e-voting’ which is the enablement of individual voting from individual personal computers. The question begging for an answer is if the voters who undertook conference voting normally go to the said offices to read their emails on a daily basis.
Sir, on the basis of the above, I am constrained to request that you kindly set-up a Council Committee to investigate the electoral process used in this election. I am also constrained to request that the entire election and the results released be nullified, and instead initiate a repeat election to be organized by an external body and monitored by Joint Council-Senate Committee whose membership will be agreed to by all candidates for the election.
