Current agitation around electoral act is positive – PAACA

By Lawrence Agbo

The Executive Director of the Peering Advocacy and Advancement Centre in Africa (PAACA), Ezenwa Nwagwu, has described the protest around the transmission of election results in real-time as a step in the right direction.

Nwagwu made the declaration during an interview with ARISE NEWS on Monday.

“The current agitation that we have seen around the electoral act amendment is positive. Positive in the sense that we have continued to ask for more and more citizen oversight over governance, over the activities of those who govern us,” he said

He also advocated for a more comprehensive strategy for Nigerian electoral reform, suggesting that conversations should go beyond the electronic transmission of results to cover collation and more in-depth involvement of political parties.

“It is also important to say that the electronic transmission of results is important, but it is not far-reaching.

“The ask should include electronic transmission and collation. Why do I say so?

“If the current extant law is what it is, if you mandatorily, compulsorily upload into what we have now, which is the iREV, it means we are still uploading still photos, handwritten still photos, which I’m not sure has computational abilities because it cannot be converted by any computer when handwritten into PDF.

“So the point, therefore, for me is that the weak link, as we have already said, is actually collation. And collation now has to be tied to first and foremost, the activities in the polling unit.

“If results are compromised, if there is community collusion, and those results from the polling unit are manipulated with the agreement of party agents, electoral officials, and security agents within that polling unit, when you upload that result, it does not help in the electoral transparency integrity sentinel that we are trying to push.

“As discussions continue around improving electoral integrity, Nwagwu warn that stopping at e-transmission alone may not fully address challenges in the electoral system.

“So I’m advocating, and I think a few of our colleagues have also understood that fact, that it is important not to leave it at simply e-transmission. And we should be talking also about e-transmission and collation.”