As the 2023 Nigerian election approaches, a former Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka, on Monday asked the country and its electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to improve on its transparency.
POLITICS NIGERIA reports that Chidoka who said he is impressed by the conduct of the keenly-contested Kenyan election, explained lessons Nigeria can learn from the East African country.
Deputy-President William Ruto led a tight presidential race against opposition leader Raila Odinga, official results reported by media showed on Monday, with an announcement from electoral authorities imminent.
The elections were held in Kenya on 9 August 2022.
Read Chidoka’s full post below:
Kenya Presidential Elections: Urgent Lessons for INEC
As of 6 am Nigerian time the Kenya Independent Electoral and Boundary Commission had tallied results from 253 out of 291constituencies. William Samoei Ruto is leading with 51.18% of the votes cast while Raila Odinga is at 48.14%. The winner needs 50% plus 1 vote to coast home. With 38 constituencies to go, the IEBC will likely announce the final result by midday today.
Some quick lessons for Nigeria:
1. The upload of results from poll units is an excellent innovation but we need to go further and upload the following
A. Form EC 8B the ward collation results from the Residential Areas.
B. Form EC 8C the Local Government Collation result
C. Upload the collated results for the State House of Assembly, House of Reps and Senate election after collation and declaration.
D. Upload the form EC 8D state collation results as signed by Party Agents before proceeding to Abuja
The delay in Kenya where all the Poll stations results were online since 11 August and collation from the 46,229 has taken about 6 days will not augur well for Nigeria.
Though INEC is usually faster than the IEBC but we are now confronted with a new system where parties can tabulate results from INEC uploads.
2. To improve transparency, the BVAS backend should automatically collate the Polling Unit results for the ward level and Print copies for validation and signing by ward Agents of the political parties. That will ensure that the result at the backend of the BVAS is consistent with the results on the BVAS tablets. This is key for post-election issues.
WHAT IS THERE TO LEARN FROM AN ELECTION RESULT A WEEK AFTER THE EXERCISE?
We celebrate too much mediocrity in Nigeria and especially by people who are supposed to know,
DID IT EVER OCCUR TO MANY THAT THE NIGERIAN ELITES ARE MOSTLY PART OF THE NIGERIAN MENACE.
I could not possibly fathom why someone in the capacity of Osita Chidoka would rather utter such mundane thoughtless spout. DISGRACEFUL.