Adamu Abdullahi, National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, has expressed concern over the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commision, INEC to transmit election results electronically in next year’s election.
The chairman of INEC Prof Mahmood Yakubu has maintained that there is no going back on the commission’s decision not to transmit elections results manually as it was done in the past.
But speaking yesterday in Abuja the nation’s capital Adamu said the country is not ripe for the technol that the Electoral umpire is planning to deploy in the 2023 general elections.
He cited the problem of erratic power supply across the country as one of the reasons why INEC must reconsider its plan to transmit results electronically.
Adamu spoke on Wednesday at the APC national headquarters, when he received a delegation of the Commonwealth on a pre-election assessment.
According to him, “Our concern is how ready are we to deploy some of these technologies as regards transmission because we are taking a major step in transmitting election results in real time.
“To transmit results, in every part of the nation Nigeria, I’m not sure that the network covers it. I know that even in parts of Abuja, there is no network and we have from now till February when in substantial parts of the country there is no electricity.
“INEC must assure us 100 per cent that as at when due in transmitting results they are ready.”
The position of the APC chairman is however at variance with that of not a few Nigerians particularly the civil society groups who insist that the deployment of electronic means to transmit election results next year will reduce to the barest minimum election rigging and manipulation.
