The Senate Committee on Electoral Matters has said that it will make it mandatory for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to upload election results online.
The committee chairman, Senator Sharafadeen Alli, said on Tuesday that the current law does not make it mandatory for INEC to upload results, but that the committee is working on amending the law.
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.”
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.
“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 into having 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, 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,” he said.
