The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Electoral Act, Sharafadeen Alli, has revealed that the upper chamber will make legislation to ensure that the electronic transmission of results by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is made mandatory.
The lawmaker gave this assurance during an interview on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily today, arguing that the current electoral law does not make it mandatory for the election umpire to transmit results electronically.
He said: “That is one of the things that we are going to do. Under the current law, it is not mandatory for INEC to upload results, that is what the court has said. But as we are going forward, it is going to be mandatory.
READ MORE: Senate Considers Bills Seeking To Hinder CBN Gov., Deputies From Involving In Politics
“We looked at elections and election petitions. In terms of legislation about election petitions, we think all pre-election matters were resolved before the election.
“We are also looking at a situation where election petitions are concluded before swearing in.
“We are thinking of approving the time within which to file and conclude election petitions so that somebody will not be sworn in, that is what led us into having these off-cycle elections.
“There would have been no need for it if we were able to conclude election petitions before the swearing-in.
“We are looking at the development of technology and improvement on technology because a lot of Nigerians were disappointed when the use of the IReV didn’t work, but going forward we will try to ensure INEC do something about that.”
