E-voting, panacea to vote buying
By Evelyn Omotoye
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The National Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), has been charged to encourage the use of electronic voting to reduce or eradicate all forms of electoral malpractices ravaging the land.
Former state chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), Ondo State, Mr Isaacs Kekemeke declared this in an exclusive interview with The Hope during the weekend.
Kekemeke said vote buying is a human factor surrounding our election which he said will fade out with the introduction of e-voting.
“I think we must begin to see how to reduce the human factor and to reduce papers in our electoral process. Let us begin to look at a system where electronic voting would be encouraged so that issues that might arise from collation centre from ward to state and national level could be avoided. So let us reduce human contact as much as possible to avoid or minimise most of these challenges.”
He said corruption and yearning for easy life have led the country and her people to the present situation but that the present government done a lot to reduce corruption.
On the legal frame work to tackle the hydra headed problems facing the country, the former NECO Chairman said there are enough legislation in the country but that the problems lie in the implementation.
He said the different between Nigeria and the developed countries is that offenders will not go unpunished there
“I think we have more than enough laws, there is nothing our laws don’t make provision for. The electoral misconduct and corruption of any sort are being provided for by the law.
“The laws prescribe for these things. The legal infrastructure is established for every citizen to behave well. But the problem is enforcing these laws and the leadership of the kind of men and women that govern or administer our laws.
“It is the will power of those entrusted with the laws. It is the discriminating enforcement of the law and big man problem that are the issues.
The problem with our attitude and moral complacency is that there are no deterrents and action for offenders. In developed countries, the citizens are not better than us but they behave well because they know there are actions for offenders but here nothing happens, there is no discrimination of breaking the laws.”
