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The electoral reforms championed by the contiguous past Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, person been applauded by the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC).
The council, comprising each registered governmental parties successful Nigeria, noted that Yakubu changed the country’s electoral processes and terrain done the monolithic deployment of technology.
At a colloquium yesterday successful Abuja connected 10 years of Yakubu’s enactment arsenic INEC chairman, IPAC nationalist president Alhaji Yusuf Dantalle said aggregate voting during the elections became hard due to the fact that of Yakubu’s far-reaching changes.
Dantalle said the votes of Nigerians really counted during the wide elections conducted by Yakubu, contempt elector apathy, adding that with the technological innovations introduced by Yakubu’s leadership, it became hard for governmental parties to manipulate the strategy done the usage of fake elector cards portion besides ensuring that lone registered voters participated.
He said, “In the past, votes were manufactured, results were announced, and you had 20-something million, 30-something million. What INEC did nether Professor Mahmood was to archetypal cleanable the voter’s registry utilizing technology, and now, you cannot person much than 1 idiosyncratic connected the register.
“The sanction you person here, if you spell to Bayelsa State, is the aforesaid person; if you spell to Akwa Ibom. So, with that process, the voter’s database was cleaned up. There are nary much underage voters that we utilized to have.
“We person seen fake Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) produced and thrown successful the gutter. They were not from INEC, and those PVCs could not walk the trial of BVAS due to the fact that they were fake.
That was due to the fact that of the exertion introduced nether the enactment of Professor Mahmood.
“So, erstwhile the predetermination was conducted successful 2023, radical complained astir elector apathy. But the information is that, contempt elector apathy, politicians nary longer manufacture votes. The votes you saw during the predetermination are the existent votes from Nigerians and cipher could ballot much than once,” helium said.
Justifying his claim, Dantalle said, “We saw an predetermination wherever a sitting politician mislaid an predetermination to the Senate. It happened successful Enugu, Benue and Kebbi, wherever sitting governors couldn’t triumph due to the fact that votes counted.
We saw a Peter Obi who does not person councillors anywhere, nary section authorities president defeating the incumbent president successful Lagos due to the fact that votes counted.”
Dantalle said Prof. Mahmood’s technologies introduced during his tenure astatine INEC were homegrown, built in-house by the commission’s staff.
He said that successful the past, governmental parties could manipulate the process of submitting names of their candidates for each election, adding that the Mahmood epoch ended that and the nefarious activities associated with it.
In his lecture titled, “INEC nether Prof. Mahmood Yakubu”, the keynote speaker, Prof. Emmanuel Aiyede of the University of Ibadan (UI), applauded the erstwhile INEC president for introducing exertion into the nation’s electoral system.
Aiyede said, however, that exertion unsocial is not capable to guarantee a credible predetermination and called for a forward-looking attack to handling electoral reforms, not simply 1 based connected what has been achieved implicit the past 10 years.
He said, “The existent measurement of enactment lies not simply successful what 1 accomplishes but successful the structures 1 leaves down to prolong progress. Under his stewardship, Nigeria’s electoral travel has been redefined by a quiescent but profound technological revolution.
“From the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV) to the digitalisation of campaigner nomination, perceiver accreditation, and elector registration, exertion has go the caller grammar of electoral credibility. These tools did not look by accident; they were the merchandise of foresight, an knowing that ideology successful the twenty-first period indispensable remainder connected verifiable data, not conscionable declarations.
“However, Yakubu’s existent bequest lies not successful the machines themselves, but successful the organization mindset that present governs their use. He helped displacement INEC from seeing exertion arsenic a novelty to treating it arsenic infrastructure, arsenic integral to electoral governance arsenic polling booths and ballot boxes.
“The committee nether his ticker learned that exertion cannot substitute for integrity, but it tin amplify it. It cannot destruct manipulation but marque manipulation traceable, accountable, and truthful riskier.
“The adjacent frontier for Nigeria’s antiauthoritarian consolidation lies successful deepening and sustaining this organization culture. As INEC enters a post-Yakubu era, the situation volition beryllium to sphere the gains of integer transparency portion addres...
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