‘Very Clear’ — Bugaje Blasts Senate Over Alleged Electoral Manipulation in E-Transmission Debate

The goal of efforts to prevent the mandated electronic transmission of election results, according to Dr. Usman Bugaje, a political activist and Islamic scholar, is to create the conditions for electoral tampering and give some political players an unfair advantage.

The accusation was made by Bugaje on Tuesday during his appearance on Arise Television’s Morning Show, where he criticized reasons against the electronic broadcast of results in real time.

Claims that the nation is incapable of electronically transmitting election results, he said, are just pretexts meant to undermine the voting process.

All of these alibis are being prepared for rigging. It’s quite obvious. Even the most isolated villages have POS. You have phones and WhatsApp, and people are chatting and sending messages,” Bugaje remarked.

He maintained that since INEC had already demonstrated its preparedness, it was not the duty of legislators to assess the Independent National Electoral Commission’s operational capability.

“INEC has the right to state that we are unable to deliver in any event. That is not the role of the legislators. And as I mentioned before, INEC itself suggested this is the stance in their statement at the public hearing,” he continued.

According to Bugaje, specialists had confirmed that network coverage nationwide was sufficient, therefore he questioned why the Senate would conjecture about INEC’s purported incapacity to transmit in real time.

He stated, “The Senate has no business speculating about INEC’s incapacity to do that when INEC is very clear on his own particular position.”

“In the past few days, experts have publicly stated that INEC can fully provide the amount of coverage.”

He insisted that findings could be uploaded if network access was established, even in places with poor connectivity.

“Remember that even if you publish at a faraway location, the message will reach the portal by the time you enter a coverage area. It’s not impossible, for that reason,” he continued.

According to reports, the activist went on to assert that multiple nations with less developed internet infrastructure have effectively adopted electronic transmission of election results.

In terms of internet coverage, many nations around the world have taken precisely this action. “There are really no reasons for this,” Bugaje said.

These are alibis, or justifications, made in order to get ready for rigging. If not, why should it be blocked in the twenty-first century with all the improvements? We have enough time to increase INEC’s capacity, nevertheless. This can be finished in a month.

Accusations of Election-Making
Bugaje maintained that opposition to real-time transmission was dubious and intended to undermine the electoral process.

Therefore, I believe that the concept of making excuses is dubious. The goal, he added, is obviously to figure out how to weaken the electoral process so that some individuals have an advantage in manipulating our elections, as they have done.

He questioned why some occurrences were not fully probed and brought up previous electoral issues.

“You remember exactly what happened even last year. They turned off, and then we started seeing all kinds of pictures, and nobody has really given us a clear explanation of what happened yet,” he added.

If it was a bug, why didn’t it occur with other outcomes? Why solely the presidential outcomes? Many of these criminals are getting away with it, but this is something that has to have been looked into in a serious nation. If anyone was found to be at fault, they would have been prosecuted.