By Jeremiah Emmanuel, Abuja
It is a new dawn for Nigeria democracy with the signing into law the amendments of the 2022 electoral act by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. This is one of the fastest signing into law of an act passed by the National Assembly and it is commendable.
Even though the process was rigorous and came with lots of controversies, but what is beautiful about the whole process is that the outcome is soothing and favourable to all parties and that is the balance.
Speaking on the controversy preceding the passage, Tinubu affirmed that humans still have a significant role to play in finalising results, as computers can’t do everything, given that many aspects of the voting process are still largely manual.
While the arguments by some Nigerians on mode of transmission of the elections results may look germane and serious, it is worthy to note that it is their constitutional right, but the question is, is it different from what is contained in the document or they just want to attract public attention on themselves, and to make it look like they are saints among sinners?
As the president rightly pointed that the process is manual until the snapping of the results sheet, so those demanding that the National Assembly passed a bill that makes it mandatory to transmit the results electronically and on real time is no issue and shouldn’t be topic to attract public attention.
While the president in his speech during the signing of the electoral act aptly noted “The transmission of that manual result is what we’re looking at. And we need to avoid glitches, interference, and unnecessary hacking in this age of computer inquisitiveness. Nigeria will be there”.
The concerns raised by the president should have been the issue to worry about, and debate should have been on how to improve on our technological development to prevent such, instead of spending energy talking about whether results are transmitted electronically or manually transferred.
Following the recent claims by the former governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai on live television programme, where he claimed to have tap into the phone conversation of the National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu.
This is worrisome and enough for Nigerians to be suspicious of those insisting that election results are transmitted electronically and on real time, this is because many politicians championing the arguments coincidentally belong to the same political party as el-Rufai.
This may look like nothing when viewed casually, as it denotes advancement in our electioneering development by digitalisating the processes, but when carefully observed, there may be some hidden motives.
It is however true that democracy is beautiful where there are open conversations, where people have rights to air their views on issues of national and international importance; where people in the minority are not muzzled into submissions by the majority. Robust deliberation gives flair to democracy.
Having said this, the conversations that preceded the passage of the electoral act is imperative; hence politics seeks to answer divergent public with conflicting interests seeking answers. The whole process is beautiful where consensus is finally reached and every party is satisfied.
As President Tinubu rightly pointed “The essence of democracy is to have very solid brainstorming discussions committed to national development, nation-building, and the stability of the nation”.
“It is time that we have confidence in our system. No matter how good the system is, it’s managed by the people, promoted by the people, and the people finalise the results.
“And when you look at the crux of various arguments, maybe Nigerians should question our broadband capability. How technically sound are we today? How technically sound will we be tomorrow in answering the call, whether in real time or not?
“And as long as you appear personally as a manual voter in any polling booth, a ballot paper is given to you manually. You decide in a corner and fingerprint the person you choose. You cast your vote without hindrance or interference.
“Ballots are subsequently counted manually. It’s just the arithmetic accuracy that is entered into it from easy thinking. It is still manual, essentially.”
In our discussions, it is imperative that our expressions is free of personal vendetta, as this will promote national cohesion and stabilize our polity.
As Nigerians, it is not news to us our infrastructural deficits, these are peculiar challenges that we have lived with and hoping that it is fixed, and this requires careful approaches in addressing them. Essays and articles that look beautiful on papers but fictions in reality are not what we need to address challenges bedevilling our evolving democratic needs in this time.
Therefore, as patriotic citizens, we don’t have to just agree with every thoughts we hear, just because they are coming from people we admire; we should test whatever is presented to us irrespective of who the presenter is and how impressive it looks.
Like the wise saying goes ‘Not all that glitters is gold’ that is to say that not everything said or written that look beautiful to the public is actually beneficial to it.
Poor infrastructures that has bedevilled our society over the years has been our bane and our inability to surmount them over the years is largely due to our selfishness and the crab syndrome of pulling backward anyone attempting to go forward other than us.
Rather than thinking of embellishing the society with good thoughts and programmes that add value to the society, those with the wherewithal to make things happen often dwell in their comfort and invest energy on things that promote their personal aggrandisement that are often detrimental to the collective good of all.
It is a public knowledge that some Nigerians are applauding the 15 senators insisting on electronic transmission of the elections results on real time, but what those Nigerians fail to ask is can we achieve this with the current state of our telecommunication.
This demand may look beautiful, people may feel that it will prevent electoral fraud, malpractices and allow for emergence of popular choice candidate. Should everything go smoothly on the election day, surely, the people’s wish will prevail and the most popular candidate emerged victorious.
However; what this public failed to take into account is where infrastructural glitches – such as telecommunication service failure – occurs during the process, and where the law only permits for transmission of the results electronically, we’ll be thrown into a serious state of quagmire; and the evil that’ll befall us will be worse than what we are running away from.
Our democracy will come to a standstill; and we’ll be doomed. The challenges that come with the manual collection will be a lesser evil to the problem it will exposed us to. This will be a threat to our collective good and to our nascent democracy.
Like the African adage says “A lizard does not gain access to a house except there is a cracked on the wall”. We shouldn’t jeopardise our democracy that is steadily evolving with desperation of few individuals inkling to grasp power, dint chaos, confusion and any means available to them, as this can expose us to Niger, Burkina Faso or Mali situation of power seizure by the military.
Jeremiah Emmanuel is a social analyst and writes for Republican Interest in Abuja.
