The Senate Committee on Electoral Matters has said it will pass a mandatory law for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to upload election results online.
Senator Sharafadeen Alli, the committee chairman, said the current law does not make it mandatory for INEC to upload results, but the committee is working on amending the law, Vanguard reports.
He said, “That is one of the things we will do. Under the current law, it is not mandatory for INEC to upload results; that is what the court has said. But as we are going forward, it will be mandatory.”
In addition to other electoral reforms being considered, Alli said the committee proposed resolving all pre-election matters before the election and upgrading election technology, adding that the committee is also considering time limits to file and conclude petitions.
“We looked at elections and election petitions. Regarding legislation about election petitions, we think all pre-election matters are resolved before the election. We are also looking at a situation where election petitions are concluded before swearing-in.”
“We are thinking of approving the time to file and conclude election petitions so that somebody will not be sworn in; that is what led us into having these off-cycle elections. There would have been no need for it if we could conclude election petitions before the swearing-in.
“We are looking at the development of technology, an improvement on technology because a lot of Nigerians were disappointed when the IReV didn’t work, but going forward, we will try to ensure INEC does something about that,” he said.
