By Our Reporter
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has kicked against the mixed electronic and manual transmission of election results, adopted on Tuesday by the Senate, saying that such move amounted to a potential threat to the country’s electoral sanctity.
Atiku, who is the Presidential Candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 elections, gave this position, while speaking to newsmen at the end of a visit to former Military President, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, in Minna, Niger State on Tuesday.
The former vice president argued that the Senate’s mixture of manual and electronic result transmission would only breed confusion, calling on all opposition parties in the country to unify against this move and ensure the nation's electoral process is modernised, not complicated by outdated methods.
"The Senate’s mixture of manual and electronic result transmission will only breed confusion. I am calling on all opposition parties to unify against this move. We must ensure our electoral process is modernised, not complicated by outdated methods," he said.
According to Atiku, Nigerians had anticipated a fully electronic transmission of election results at all levels, saying that a hybrid system could compromise the integrity of elections and create unnecessary confusion in the collation of results.
"What Nigerians were expecting was electronic transmission of results across the various levels of the election.
“What we got instead was a mixture of electronic and manual transmission, which is going to cause more confusion and could jeopardise our electoral transmission system," he said.
The former vice president insisted that real-time electronic transmission of results remained the best option for credible elections in the country.
Atiku dismissed speculations about his political ambitions ahead of the 2027 General Elections, saying that his visit to former Military President Babangida was purely a customary one of paying respect to a statesman.
"The issue of whether I will be contesting the 2027 election has not even arisen,” he said.
He disclosed that, his party, the African Democratic Congress (ADC), was currently focused on strengthening its structures nationwide, saying that the coalition was working to ensure that its organisational framework was firmly rooted from the ward level, local government and state levels up to the national level.
This was just as he added that the ADC constitution does not provide for zoning of political offices.
"We are busy mobilising people and registering them at the same time," he said.
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