Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi says the clause empowering the Nigerian Communications Commission and the National Assembly to be the final arbiter in determining usage of electronic transmission of results for elections amounted to compromising the Independent National Electoral Commission.

Mr Fayemi, also the chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum, said issues around electronic transmission of election results in the Electoral Act Amendment Bill debate at the National Assembly should have been better handled.

Peoples Gazette had reported that 52 (APC) senators voted granting the NCC powers to determine whether election results are transmitted electronically, while 28 (PDP senators) voted against it.

Speaking on this development on Channels TV on Sunday, Mr Fayemi said INEC should be allowed to independently determine how election results are transmitted and not be overregulated while discharging its constitutional duties.

“I feel that the hullabaloo around this could have been avoided. Because I think we must not over regulate the activities of an independent commission,” Mr Fayemi said.

He further said the INEC ought to have been allowed to decide on electronic transmission of election result instead of involving the NCC and the National Assembly.

“If I have the opportunity to be asked,” Mr Fayemi said, “I would actually argue that we leave this matter for the electoral commission to handle, rather than micromanage the electoral commission. Or bring in the Nigerian Communications Commission or the National Assembly to be an arbiter on what happens to electronic transmission.”

Mr Fayemi added that the decision of the National Assembly has elicited suspicion that there is an hidden agenda behind the amended electoral act empowering the NCC to decide on electronic transmission of election results.

“I frankly think things could have been handled differently and it is unfortunate that it has been handled the way it has been handled. It is giving an impression that there is some surreptitious or hidden agenda, which there isn’t,” he said.

The NCC on its part has told the National Assembly that the transfer of election results electronically could be compromised by hackers as no system is 100 per cent free from tampering.

But INEC said it has since 2018 proven to the National Assembly its capacity to electronically transmit election results across all parts of Nigeria, including from remote areas.

“We have gone very far in terms of deepening the use of technology in the electoral process and the mobile operators have assured us in 2018 that they have carried out similar things for other agencies that this one will not be a big issue,” INEC’s spokesman Festus Okoye said.