According to Dr. Usman Bugaje, a political activist and Islamic scholar, efforts to prevent the mandated electronic transmission of election results are intended to create the conditions for electoral tampering and provide some political actors with an unfair advantage.
Bugaje made the accusation on Tuesday during his appearance on Arise Television’s Morning Show, when he criticized the arguments against results being transmitted electronically in real time.
Claims that the nation is unable to electronically transmit election results, he said, are just pretexts meant to undermine the voting process.
All of these are alibis to get ready for rigging. It is really obvious. Even in the most isolated communities, you have POS. You have phones, are working, and WhatsApp is used by people to communicate and exchange messages,” Bugaje stated.
He claimed that since INEC had already demonstrated its preparedness, it was not the duty of legislators to assess the Independent National Electoral Commission’s operational capability.
In any event, INEC has the right to state that we are unable to provide. Legislators shouldn’t do that. And, as I mentioned earlier, INEC itself suggested that this be the stance in its contribution at the public hearing,” he continued.
Bugaje questioned why the Senate would conjecture about INEC’s purported incapacity to transmit in real time when, in his opinion, experts had confirmed that the nation’s network coverage was sufficient.
He questioned, “If INEC is so clear about his own position, what is the Senate’s business to start speculating about INEC’s inability to do that?”
“In the past few days, experts have publicly stated that INEC can provide the necessary level of coverage.”
He insisted that once network access is established, findings can still be submitted, even in places with poor connectivity.
Keep in mind that the message will reach the portal by the time you enter an area of coverage, even if you post at a faraway location. Thus, it’s not an impossible thing,” he continued.
According to reports, the activist went on to assert that electronic transmission of election results has been effectively adopted in a number of nations with less developed internet infrastructure.
This is precisely what many nations around the world that have much less established internet access have done. Actually, these aren’t any justifications,” Bugaje said.
They make these explanations and alibis in order to get ready for rigging. Otherwise, with all the improvements in the twenty-first century, why should it be blocked? Either way, we have enough time to increase INEC’s capacity. This can be completed in a month.
Electoral manipulation allegations
Bugaje maintained that opposition to real-time transmission was suspicious and intended to undermine the electoral process.
Therefore, I believe that making excuses is a dubious practice. And it’s obvious that the goal is to figure out how to weaken the voting process so that some individuals may influence our elections the way they have,” he continued.
He also brought up previous election-related disputes, raising concerns about why some of them were not looked into in detail.
You remember exactly what happened even last year. He stated, “They turned off, and then all kinds of images were coming, and really, nobody has adequately explained to us what exactly happened up to this point.”
“After all, why didn’t it occur with other results if it was a glitch? Only the presidential results, and why? And this is something that needs to have been looked into in a serious nation. If anyone was proven to be at fault, they would have faced consequences, but many of these crooks are getting away with it.
