The Executive Director of the Peering Advocacy and Advancement Center in Africa (PAACA), Ezenwa Nwagwu has called for a broader approach to electoral reform in Nigeria, arguing that discussions should extend beyond electronic transmission of results to include collation and deeper political party engagement.
Speaking during an interview with ARISE NEWS on Monday regarding the ongoing debate over the Electoral Act amendment, Nwagwu said, “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.
“The more you have people, you have more and more citizens engaging the issue of lawmaking, the more it is truly that we are expanding the democratic space. Having said that, 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.
“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.”
Nwagwu also highlighted the role of infrastructure, particularly internet penetration, in enabling real-time reporting. He urged harmonisation among service providers, the National Communications Commission, and the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy to clearly define where real-time systems can be reliably implemented without creating additional problems.
He said, “It is important to nuance internet penetration. We cannot discountenance that conversation. Your election cannot be better than your infrastructure. We have to be clear where we can do that in real time. And the way to do that is a harmonisation, a kind of concurrence between the service providers, the National Communication Commission, and the Ministry of Communication, and digital economy. Clearly, transparently putting out where we have internet penetration, and where we can, so that when we talk about real-timeness, we don’t push ourselves into a situation where we solve a problem and create a bigger one.”
Additionally, he stated, “For the report that YIAGA released, what is important is to continue to push for more interests and facilities and situations, enabling an environment that increases and improves the trust threshold in elections, in public institutions, in all the stakeholder folks within the election pyramid. That is INEC, security agencies, political parties, and even the citizens. We must be able to work in a way that we continue to improve the trust threshold and increase it in a way that captures everybody coming into the vote to make our election more better and credible.
“The bigger responsibility, in my view, is that as we talk about electoral reform, we should also be talking about political reforms because the base of our leadership recruitment process is the political parties. And in conversations around reform, you find that they are absent.
“What you see is political figures, not the political parties, actively engaging. You have opposition figures, you have political figures engaging in the conversation based on the particular interests that they have at any particular time. But not actively seeing political parties in their structure, coming out to say, this is our position on this, and they are ready to put boots on the ground alongside civil society as well.”
Melissa Enoch
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