The governorship election in Osun State has come and gone and a winner has emerged. Senator Ademola Adeleke whom many believed was cheated out of the governorship seat in 2018 emerged the winner.
Due to the amended Electoral Act, results are now transmitted electronically from polling units and uploaded to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) portal for willing Nigerians to monitor.
The reality is that the electronic transmission of results is a game changer because it is minimizing forgery and falsification of results.
Because results are uploaded to the INEC portal right from the polling units, it has become a herculean task for forgers to tamper with the results after voting and counting because the outcome at the polling unit level is already known. Also, once the voters ensure that results are uploaded immediately after counting before leaving voting units, it is almost impossible for them to be tampered with.
Thus, technology and elegant legislation are gradually putting professional riggers and thugs out of business. The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) gadget that is used for accreditation of voters is also a panacea for overvoting.
In the Osun State election, for instance, any polling unit where the number of votes exceeded the number of accredited voters, had its votes cancelled. So, the use of technology in voting is actually a deterrent against ballot stuffing and overvoting.
However, attempts were still made in the Osun election to suppress votes through disruptions at polling units. There were also reported isolated cases of total disruption of voting by thugs in some units. There were also alleged instances where party agents were barred by thugs from some polling units.
Thus, a lot of work still needs to be done to totally eradicate electoral violence.The country needs to reduce the ceremony behind announcing results and make the process simpler.
After results have already been published on the INEC portal, the commission could easily give the total votes garnered by each candidate and declare the winner, while the details could be gleaned from the official portal.
There is no point keeping people awake all night for results that have been uploaded straight from the polling units earlier in the day and could be seen on the portal.
As of 1.39am on Sunday of the election, the INEC officials in Osun State were still wasting precious time on formalities rather than going straight into the business of announcing the results. The winner was eventually announced after 6am on Sunday when the election had ended around 4pm the previous day.
But in all, INEC and the National Assembly need to to be praised for the improvements on our electoral system that has been greatly transformed through technology and law. The next monster to face and destroy in the system is vote buying. This must be done before the 2023 general elections.
Written by Tony Okafor
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