Biola Azeez – Ilorin
Former Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, has expressed concern over the low turnout of voters in the governorship elections.
Speaking with journalists after casting his vote on Saturday, Saraki commended the people of Kwara state for conducting themselves peacefully for the elections.
He, however, tasked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) with credibility in order to have the confidence of Nigerians.
“The process is going on peacefully, but clearly we can all see that the turnout is low. People are still a little bit disappointed at the last elections as INEC has disenfranchised a lot of people.
“We make an appeal to people to come out and vote. It is still early in the day to make an assessment of the whole process.
“We hope this time around INEC would have learnt from what happened the last time and what it has done to the image of our country.
“We hope when the results are out, they will be uploaded as promised and transmitted,” he said.
Speaking on the BVAS technology, the former Senate president said that there was nothing wrong with the technology, saying that, “we cannot rule out that it was made intentionally not to work out in the last election.
“If it works today, we have to ask questions on why it worked and it did not work on the February 25 elections. And you can see what it has done to the confidence of Nigerians,” he said.
Saraki added that there would be credible elections in Nigeria if electoral laws were strictly adhered to.
“We tried passing the law in 2019, which unfortunately did not pass because people felt the law will not allow the kind of rigging that we have now.
“If the law is strictly adhered to, elections will be very credible except the system ensures the law does not work as it happened in the last presidential elections.
“The law has given sanctions, but nobody has been sanctioned for contradicting the law. As long as officials think they can get away with it, it will continue.
“I think what we should do is obey and follow the law. We have gone a long way from where we were before but as a country, we believe we can do better.
“We look back and see how peacefully we are having elections now. It never used to be like this; we are progressing but we should progress more than this,” he said.
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