Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has called on the National Assembly to urgently revisit the current electoral laws and processes to enhance their efficiency, transparency, and credibility, aligning them with global best practices.
In a statement on Monday, Atiku cited the recent elections in Ghana as a model for necessary amendments that would eliminate ambiguities in the electoral process.
Atiku emphasised that the National Assembly should revise the laws to empower the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to deliver elections that are transparent, quick, and credible.
He noted that the swift declaration of results in Ghana, where contestants received results by Sunday morning after a Saturday election, underscores the importance of incorporating efficient technology into the electoral process.
The statement read in part: “The recently concluded presidential election in Ghana, our next-door neighbour, presents a wake-up call to INEC and the National Assembly on the need to review our electoral process and make it more efficient, transparent, credible and in line with best practices across the world. There is a need for INEC to embrace technology and make it help the process.”
The PDP chieftain argued that any practices that allow manual conduct of elections or hinder real-time result upload on the IREV system must be eradicated, proposing that elections failing to meet these technological standards should be declared null and void.
“Any excuse that still allows some officials to conduct elections manually or gives the impression that results cannot be uploaded in real-time on the IREV should be eliminated. Any election that does not meet the technology threshold should be nullified,” he said.
Atiku stressed the need to discourage any attempts to sabotage technology to manipulate results.