There is growing concern or even anger among stakeholders that interests within the National Assembly appear set to scuttle hopes for credible general elections in Nigeria in 2023. In February 2021, the joint committees of the National Assembly on \u00a0the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Electoral Matters, in the Senate and House of Representatives, respectively, agreed on a common draft bill. This document was then to be presented to the plenary of both houses, for passage. At the public hearing on the bill in December 2020, Senate President, Dr. Ahmad Lawan had assured that the National Assembly would pass the bill before the end of March 2021. This was not to be as the Senate President changed the timeline to now be that the bill be passed before the end of June 2021. Already into July 2021, the National Assembly is yet to pass the Electoral (Repeal and Re-enactment) Bill. \u00a0Within the week however, indications have emerged that the draft agreed to by the joint committee may have been tinkered with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Concern has mounted that some of\nthe progressive portions of the bill may have been altered to make the exercise\nalmost meaningless. Key among the ground-breaking amendments is clause 50(2),\nwhere the committee recommended the following for passage: \u201cvoting at an election\nand transmission of result under this Bill shall be in accordance with the\nprocedure determined by the Commission<\/em>.\u201d Indications are that this clause has been\namended to read as follows: <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cVoting at an election under this\nbill shall be in accordance with the procedure determined by the Commission,\nwhich may include electronic voting, PROVIDED that the Commission shall not\ntransmit results of elections by electronic means<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The implication is that were this new\nprovision to pass, it will be illegal for INEC to transmit results of elections\nby electronic means. INEC has shown over the course of the last few years,\nespecially with recent elections, that electronic transmission of results\nsignificantly reduces electoral fraud and delays in announcement of results.\nINEC has also shown its ability to continue to improve on its use of technology\nduring elections. Seeking to outrightly outlaw INEC\u2019s transmission of results\nby electronic means would give the country one of the most retrogressive legal\ninterventions in the conduct of elections. It is therefore curious where this\nattempt to prohibit the use of electronic means of transmission of election\nresults is coming from. This position was never canvassed at any public hearing\nconducted by the National Assembly leading up to the joint committee\u2019s report,\nnor was any memorandum submitted or canvassed in support of this. It is however\nunclear whether the inserted provision in the draft Electoral Bill that\nprohibits electronic transmission of results is widely held in the National\nAssembly or if it was inserted by a small clique of interests anxious to shoot\ndown progress in Nigeria\u2019s electoral system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The use of technology in elections\nhas become important in the light of challenges posed by human factor. In\nSeptember 2020, INEC held a virtual demonstration of information technology\nsolutions for electronic voting and collation of results by 40 companies, as\npart of its efforts to deepen the electoral process through the deployment of\ntechnology. The Commission also introduced the INEC Result Viewing (IReV)\nportal and Z-pads for the upload and viewing of polling unit election results\nin real-time. More recently, it introduced the \u2018INEC Voter Enrolment Device\u2019\n(IVED) for Continuous Voter Registration (CVR). Several stakeholders lauded\nthese steps, acknowledging that the automation of various election processes\nwill serve to improve the credibility of elections and boost citizens\u2019\nconfidence. Restricting the use of technology to voting will hamper on efforts of\nINEC, civil society organisations and other stakeholders to improve Nigeria\u2019s\nelections through technology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Another worrying aspect of the draft\nbill is the concern of significant increase made to the limits of election\nexpenses in clause 88, with that of presidential election increased from\nN5billion to N15billion; that of governorship election from N1billion to\nN5billion; Senatorial election from N100million to N1.5billion and House of\nRepresentatives election from N70million to N500million. The limit of expenses\nfor House of Assembly election has been increased to N50million from\nN30million, while that of Chairmanship election to an Area Council of the\nFederal Capital Territory is N50million from N30million. The dominance of money\npolitics in Nigeria\u2019s elections is detrimental, as finances constitute a major\nhindrance to women and youth inclusion in politics. Related to this, is clause\n90(2)(b), which increases the limit of donation by an individual to a political\nparty, from N1million to N50million. Also, in clause 88(11), the fine for an\nindividual who donates more than N50million to a candidate, has been increased\nfrom N500,000 to N5million, with the option of imprisonment removed. This\npunitive measure will barely serve as a deterrent in this case. With higher\nlimits of election expenses, monitoring campaign expenses will prove more\ndifficult. In addition, limits to campaign expenses have been dramatically\nincreased by these amendments, making it even more difficult for disadvantaged\ngroups including women, young persons and the poor to participate in the\nelectoral process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is important for the National\nAssembly to critically consider the bill, to provide Nigerians with a new,\nholistic electoral law that will serve to improve the quality of elections and\ndemocracy, in general. It is equally important that the bill is passed\ntimeously to allow ample time to make preparations for the 2023 general\nelections in line with the provisions of the new law. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is growing concern or even anger among stakeholders that interests within the National Assembly appear set to scuttle hopes for credible general elections in Nigeria in 2023. In February 2021, the joint committees of the National Assembly on \u00a0the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Electoral Matters, in the Senate and House of Representatives, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[374,373],"class_list":["post-2175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-inec-voter-enrolment-device","tag-is-the-integrity-of-the-2023-general-elections-already-under-threat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2182,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2175\/revisions\/2182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}