A former Commisioner for Justice and Attorney General of Oyo State, Adebayo Mutualubi Ojo, says technology is key to electoral reform in the country.
Ojo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, stated this while speaking at the June 12 Democracy day event organized by the Ogun State Government where he was a guest speaker.
He lauded the Independent National Electoral Commission for the outcome of the 2023 general election, noting that the commission deserves an apology from a lot of its critics.
“I make bold to say and I stand to be contradicted even up till this point that I have not seen or heard a single voter who can say or claim that the result declared at his or her polling unit was different or varied from what was later uploaded , when there was network later , on the I-Rev.
“Yet, INEC’s best efforts in the 2023 general elections were rubbished and scandalized due to misinformation, misrepresentation, utter gossips and untruths. INEC Chairman, his National Commissioners , State RECs , Returning Officers , Presiding Officers, Polling Clerks and all adhoc Staff of INEC deserve national apology from all of us and Nigeria as a whole,” the Ibadan-born lawyer said.
Speaking further, he noted that “any sector or system that doesn’t want to be left behind must mandatorily key in fully into the full use of the ICT and our Electoral System or sector is not exempted. One must give kudos to INEC in that INEC is one of the key agencies that is well ahead of others in the deployment and embrace of the use of ICT to enhance its functional roles and deliverables,”
“To be able to make and take maximum use of ICT to up its games and take it to the next level so that it can surpass the unanimously acclaim best conducted election of the June 12 , 1993 election in the year 2027, INEC needs to do the some of the followings but which list is not exhaustive-
“The Electoral Act must be holistically amended to fully incorporate, integrate and embrace full automation of the INEC processes and systems. There must not be manual accreditation of voters under any guise whatsoever. It must be absolutely by BVAS and nothing else.
“After the declaration of results at the polling units , the result declared must be instantly uploaded , transmitted and able to show on I-rev in order to earn voters confidence and also enhance the integrity of the system. With the adoption of the right technology, INEC should be able to get it right to the extent that as results are being uploaded and transmitted unto the I-Rev, the declared results can tally up and add up themselves without being done manually. We don’t need an I-Rev that is just a mere viewing centre again at this stage of our national life but a very functional collation I-Rev centre is what we really need,” he added.
