By Harry Awurumibe, Editor, Abuja Bureau
Former Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Akwa Ibom state, Mike Igini, has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu not to sign into law the newly passed Electoral Act Amendment Bill, pointing out that it is a ‘Greek gift’ to Nigerians.
Prompt News reports that the Senate and House of Representatives, Tuesday, passed a new Electoral Act Amendment Bill that will be transmitted to the President for assent. If assented to within the Constitutional time frame of 30 days, the Bill will govern the conduct of the 2027 General Election.
But the new Bill which is supposed to attempt to address a plethora of issues peculiar to Nigeria’s elections such as the use of technological innovations in our elections, especially electronic transmission of election results and party internal democracy to fill gaps in extant provisions, are not properly captured in what was passed by NASS on Tuesday, a situation which has made many Nigerians sad.
Speaking on Arise News breakfast live television show “The Morning Show” on Wednesday, Igini urged President Tinubu not to sign the Electoral Act Amendment Bill passed by NASS because it does not address the problems Nigerians wanted it to solve.
For example, Igini insists that if the provisor in Clause 60 (3), which said that the Electoral Officer should rely on the use of Form EC8A if electronic transmission fails, pointing out that “if this provisor is retained, then, there is going to be chaos in 2027 because there will be no network.”
He warned that manual transfer of election results passed by NASS is another INEC Incident Forms brought back through the back door, which will be used to sabotage the 2027 elections.
Said he: “I can bet that if the President assents to what NASS passed on Tuesday, there will be ‘No Network’ on the election days. It means the 2027 elections will only be conducted using Form EC8A, another way of bringing back the notorious “Incident Forms” into our elections”.
The fiery ex-INEC REC, whose good works in the Commission is still standing, stated that the lives of INEC Adhoc election officials will be in grave danger because “rogue” political actors will pressure the Adhoc staff to rely solely on manual transfer of election results than opt for e-transmission of election results.
“History is a graveyard of contending opinion,” he argued
Meanwhile, Igini has accused the country’s judiciary, especially the apex court, the Supreme Court of turning Nigerian electoral process upside down by its 2023 ruling that the well-intentioned INEC electronic election tool iREV as a mere ” Election Viewing Centre”.
Said he: “Supreme Court ruled that iReV is a viewing centre. Regrettably, all the efforts made over the years to have credible elections in Nigeria were truncated by the Supreme Court.”
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Igini as INEC REC in Akwa Ibom, initiated lawsuits and secured convictions of university Don and others who committed electoral frauds before his retirement from INEC in 2022 after serving his last five years as REC in Akwa Ibom.
