Nigeria’s electoral process prior to this time has experienced improvement, especially when Professor Attahiru Jega was the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The improvement in the process, was as a result of the introduction of technology in capturing of voters’ data – the card reader technology.
The technology had pushed backwards tendencies of ballot manipulation and box stuffing, as fingerprints are used in identifying a voter before he votes. Since no two individuals have same fingerprint, the nation’s election was near perfection.
But a Nigerian lawyer, Liborous Oshomah, fears that the gains are speedily being swallowed up by the lack of improvement on the technological input made by the Jega era.
“I had expected that probably the current electoral officials would have been able to take it a notch further and by now, all of these complaints… even when politicians complain, people would have looked at them and say well… why complain… because it is obvious.
“But because we did not bother to improve on that process, it seems as if, rather than progress, we are retrogressing. We are gradually getting back to those days,” he said.
Mr Oshomah further stressed that anyone raising any complaint about the process at this time had the ground to do so, pointing out that the card reader had its imperfections.
Technological input in the process of the election had stopped at card readers’ use and this, according to the lawyer, has given politicians time to begin to fashion out other ways of manipulating elections.
“With that process, politicians also devised another means of having to buy votes across board.
“With all of these, election now becomes a thing for the highest bidder. He who has more money will be the one that will eventually win it,” he said.
He, however, expressed optimism that with sincerity and modern technology, all elections in Nigeria will get to a level that it would be described as a fair process by all participants and political parties.
The lawyer advised that there should be provision for update of the card reader machine, a period of test-running the card readers and addition of other equipment that could make the process more credible.
He also highlighted the need for continuity in the preparation process for elections months before the election date.