Nigerians Not Ready For Real-time Transmission Of Election Results – Shagari Warns

Former Deputy Governor of Sokoto State, Mukhtar Shagari, has said that Nigeria should not be in a hurry to begin real-time transmission of election results.

Shagari gave this advice on Friday in an interview on Arise Television.

His comment is coming amid the controversy surrounding the position of the Senate on electronic transmission of election results.

Recall that the Senate on Wednesday reportedly turned down a proposed change to Clause 60, sub-section 3 of the Electoral Amendment Bill that sought to make electronic transmission of election results compulsory.

Reacting, the ex-Deputy Governor said, “E-transmission of election results is good. But this is done in countries that have the necessary things available to transmit. In Nigeria we must admit that we have a lot of challenges.

We must acknowledge that we have challenges in electricity. We have challenges even in transmission of television, I mean services and all this kind of thing and so on so forth. So I believe that we should not be in a hurry to start transmitting election results real-time.

“We should try to make sure that we perfect our elections because we still have problems as far as our elections are concerned. We are learning. Don’t forget that even America that has over 200 years of democracy is still having problems in transmitting election results. It has happened during the the administration of President George Bush.

So America, with all its experience in elections, technology and so on, could not have a perfect election when it comes to issues of transmission of results, let alone Nigeria.”