As Nigeria celebrates the 2024 Democracy Day, National Association of Seadogs, popularly known as Pyrates Confraternity, has called on both the National Assembly and the Federal Government to ensure continuous reforms of the nation’s electoral system towards attaining full digital and electronic voting in the country.
The Confraternity said such continuous reforms of the electoral system would enable the country to attain the conduct of sound, free, fair and credible elections in the nearest future.
It also stated that such continuous electoral reforms would ensure that the supreme sacrifices made by the late winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Chief MKO Abiola; his wife, Kudirat Abiola and other pro-democracy activists, who laid down their lives for the restoration of democracy in Nigeria, did not go in vain.
Capoon of the Katamaran Deck of the Pyrates Confraternity comprising Ijebu and Remolands with its Secretariat in Ijebu-Ode Ogun State, Mr Gbenga Otunba-Payne, said these in a statement to commemorate the 2024 Democracy Day.
According to him, experiences from the past and recent conduct of periodic elections in the country have shown that Nigeria still requires constant electoral reforms to enable the country to achieve near-perfect and credible conduct of elections.
Otunba-Payne said taking up this challenge by both the National Assembly and the Federal Government would give the Nigerian electorate the confidence and belief in the sanctity and credibility of the nation’s electoral system.
He further stated that entrenching a credible electoral system would create sustainable democratic norms in the country.
According to the Capoon, “Nigeria as a modern nation should by now have been allowing the electorate the benefit of voting digitally or electronically. It’s shameful that Nigeria has remained in the analogue situation when other African countries like Ghana, Kenya and others have since gone digital. Yet, our banking system is one of the most efficient in the world. ATMs and PoS are largely in use among Nigerians. You easily get bank alerts and others on your phone and you can also easily withdraw cash through the ATMs and PoS. These are all digital and electronic systems that our electoral system can avail itself of. If all these digital platforms are now possible, then what’s been preventing our electoral and voting system from advancing and becoming digitalised?
“From past and recent experiences of the conduct of elections in Nigeria, it’s now very clear that if we don’t go digital and electronic with our voting system, credible elections will continue to elude us and even remain a mirage in Nigeria. Digital and electronic voting will drastically reduce the incidence of election fraud in our electoral system in Nigeria. It will wipe out vote buying and selling that have become rampant during elections in Nigeria.”
The Katamaran Deck Capoon added that it’s not just enough for politicians to keep paying lip service to instituting electronic voting in the nation’s electoral system.
He said they should take the agitation for the complete digitization of the nation’s electoral system seriously with a view to producing meaningful results for the nation’s electoral system.
Otunba-Payne further stated, “During recent elections, electronic accreditation and transmission of election results directly to INEC portal have been done. What should stop the country from advancing to electronic voting?
“It’s high time both the National Assembly and the Federal Government seriously looked into this. Nigeria cannot afford to remain stagnant in the face of rapid development in other parts of Africa and the world.”
