Electoral Act: Senate’s bold amendment will help democracy —Arise

Senator Ayo Arise, who represented Ekiti North Senatorial District in the Sixth Assembly and served as Chairman Senate Committee on Privatisation, described the amendment as bold move to sustain democracy. He spoke with TAIWO AMODU. Excerpts:

THE Kogi incident

I believe those amendments are in tandem with the dictates of our time now.  Having discovered that an unexpected situation occurred in Kogi and it took the country into confusion, particularly INEC and that resulted in picking  the candidate that came second during the primary which didn’t go down well with many of the aspirants in the party. So, allowing room for a new primary to be conducted by the party is one of the ways to resolve such crisis.

Ordinarily, at the point of going for an election, there are two people with a joint ticket. I would have imagined that in an election already concluded, the deputy should have benefitted from the votes already recorded and go into the run off with a new deputy. But what the Senate has done now with the idea of conducting a fresh primary isn’t a bad idea at all and I think that would forestall such a problem in the near future.

The next issue is the release of voters register on INEC website. I think this is a very progressive development. Though it must be along with using physical means to cross check list at polling units so that those who don’t have access to the Internet will be given the opportunity to check their names.  But I think they should continue to do things that will take care of the present and the foreseeable future, not even what we can anticipate now. But I believe that these amendments are very progressive and the Senate should be commended.

Permanent Voters Card (PVC) and card reader

I think the major issue we are encountering today is that of ensuring that those who came forward don’t proclaim fictitious names: that the man who claims to be Ayo is truly Ayo.  We need to address such shortcomings. There is a proposal to INEC to ensure that it deploys accurate technology, as it is done around the world.

Electronic voting

It is a welcomed development as well. It shows seriousness of purpose for conduct of free and fair election. Now that every results will be collated and announced at the polling units, it is such a bold move towards ensuring that people don’t go to INEC  local government headquarters or state headquarters to tamper with documents. I believe this amendment significantly will move towards resolving some of the challenges. They are all very giant, bold, progressive amendments.

Pegging nomination fees

Well, when you look at it critically, the money contributed by aspirants hardly go towards conducting any election. You find out that in most cases, the party structure fund election. So, the fees collected from aspirants by and large shut some people from the race and the whole essence of democracy is to allow multiple aspirants by putting a peg to what people can be charged. But when the fees are reviewed, you might get to a point somebody running for president will have to go and bring N50m or N100 million to participate at all.

So, I believe, looking at this is a bold move. In other climes, there is a limit to what every candidate can spend, during the primary and during the general elections. Some people circumvent this by and large but the law is there.’’ But I don’t think the issue of donations can be controlled, as that of how much a candidate can pay as nomination fee. I don’t know how they came about the number or the fee but I think it is a bold move to check what parties can charge each candidate.