Though Senate rejected E- transmission of election results, we believe in it – Lawan

By Musa Baba Adamu

The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, has said that though the majority of Senators voted against immediate deployment of electronic transmission of results from the polling units, to the ward, to the local government, states and federal, they believe in the new trend.
In a statement issued yesterday by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ola Awonoyi, Lawan said “All of us in the Senate, 109 of us, believe that at one point, our electoral process must deploy electronic transmission so that it eases and enhances the electoral process and give it more credibility and integrity”.
Lawan explained that the Upper Chamber voted the way it did in defence of about half of the Nigerian voters whose votes may not be counted with immediate deployment or application of electronic transmission of election results.
Speaking further on the Bill, Lawan said “I’m happy that we have been able to pass the amendment even though some people are complaining of what we have passed in the Senate and probably what the House of Representatives has also passed.
“But you see, when you have not reached that stage where you could deploy the electronic transmission from every part of the country, then you have to be very careful. And no matter what anybody may say, you cannot have about 50 percent of Nigerian voters not participating or not getting their votes counted in elections and say it doesn’t matter, that we have to start the electronic transmission.
“We know the evils of not transmitting results electronically but compare the evils of electronically transmitting just half of the electoral votes from Nigerians and say you have elected a President with 50 percent only.
“And others have voted but their results or their votes could not be electronically transmitted. This is disenfranchising Nigerians and we are not going to support this kind of thing because essentially, we are supposed to be fair to every part of Nigeria and when we voted, every part of Nigeria voted for and against(the amendment).