Ex-Aviation Minister says Kenyan Election has urgent lessons for INEC
Nigeria’s former Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka, has highlighted what he described as “urgent lessons” that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, must learn from Kenya’s polls as the country moves closer to announcing the election result after days of anxious waiting,
According to reports, as of Monday morning, the Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto was leading with slightly over 51 percent of the votes against his close rival Raila Odinga–with 48 percent in the presidential race, in the collation of results for the elections held August 9, 2022.
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Taking to his Facebook page, Chidoka, in a post titled, ‘Kenya Presidential Election: Urgent Lessons for INEC,’ noted that the delay in Kenya’s collation of election results which took about six days, would not augur well for Nigeria.
He said, “As of 6 am Nigerian time, the Kenya Independent Electoral and Boundary Commission had tallied results from 253 out of 291 constituencies.
“Ruto is leading with 51.18% of the votes cast while Raila Odinga is at 48.14%. The winner needs 50% plus one vote to coast home. With 38 constituencies, the IEBC will probably announce the result by midday today,” he predicted.
Chidoka, also a former Corps Marshal and Chief Executive of the Federal Road Safety Corps, said uploading results from polling units in Nigeria was an excellent innovation.
“However, the country needs to go further and upload Form EC 8B–the ward collation results from the Residential Areas and Form EC 8C—the Local Government collation results.
“Upload the collated results for the State House of Assembly, House of Representatives, and Senate election after collation and declaration.
“Upload the form EC 8D – state collation results as signed by party agents before proceeding to Abuja,” he added.
He noted that INEC was usually faster than the IEBC, but “we are now confronted with a new system where parties can tabulate results from INEC uploads.
“To improve transparency, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System backend should automatically collate the Polling Unit results for the ward level and print copies for validation and signing by ward agents of the political parties.”
Chidoka noted that this would “ensure that the result at the backend of the BVAS is consistent with the ones on the BVAS tablets. This is key for post-election clarity,” he revealed.
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