Human Rights lawyer Mike Ozekhome has faulted the decision of the National Assembly to vote against electronic transmission of results in the Electoral Amendment Bill.
He also faulted the conditionality that constrains the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to defer to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and National Assembly before it can transmit results in some areas.
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The Senior Advocate of Nigeria argued that with these decisions, the federal lawmakers may have laid the foundation for the rigging of the 2023 elections.
Ozekhome spoke in Abuja while delivering a special lecture at the 2021 graduation/prize-giving ceremony of Pacesetters’ School Abuja owned by Edo state–born politician and educationist, Kenneth Imansuangbon.
According to Ozekhome, federal lawmakers have pulled Nigeria back to the stone age with the rejection of electronic voting.
Ozekhome said: “Did you see the national tragedy in the last two days in the national assembly where Nigerians are against electronic voting; wanting us to stay back in the stone aged so that they can rig elections?
“The ballot papers are meant to be put there for your preference, it is meant to be counted and it is meant to count. Where you do not allow it to count then you are not having a government of the people. You are having a government of the few by the few and of the few.
“Why do we chose to kill electronic voting when across the world, even the Democratic Republic of Congo here and Zambia are using it. You are even now making INEC to no longer be independent. Why are we killing this country? Why are we on a journey of no destination?”