Senate Committee on Electoral Matters has outlined some of its plans to tackle challenges facing the conduct of elections in Nigeria.
Appearing on a Channels Television program on Tuesday, November 21, the committee chairman, Senator Sharafadeen Alli said they will be making it mandatory for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to upload election results online.
Alli also said the committee proposed resolving all pre-election matters before the election and upgrading election technology.
He said, “That is one of the things that we are going to 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 is going to be mandatory.
“We looked at elections and election petitions. In terms of legislation about election petitions, what we think is all pre-election matters 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 within which to file and conclude election petitions so that somebody will not be sworn in, that is what led us to have these off-cycle elections.
“There would have been no need for it if we were able to 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 use of the IReV didn’t work, but going forward we will try to ensure INEC do something about that.”
