From Yakubu Busari, Jos
Ex-Speaker of the Plateau State House of Assembly, Rt.Hon Istifanus Mwansat has disclosed that the problem associated with electoral issue in Nigeria is not that the type of political primaries but how to transmit election results electronically to collection centres and to INEC headquarters across the country .
He condemned the ideas of Nigerian focusing more on direct primaries waiting to be ascended by President Muhammadu Buhari saying that the major problem in the political scene in Nigeria is lack of transmission of election results through the electronic means .
Speaking to our correspondent in Jos, Mwansat explained that the rational behind the direct primaries is not an issue as far as he is concerned but the transmission of results electronically which is very apt and meaningful to the election and wondered why that clause in the Electoral Act was generating so much issue regarding whether President should assent or withdraw assent to the bill.
He said that aspect should not be legislate upon knowing that political parties as independent as they’re they should be allow to decide on what form or what process to make the choice of their candidates so you can’t restrict them to follow a particular format there are plus and minus across each .
Hon Istifanus Mwansat stated that the direct primaries is more acceptable to be manipulated than the indirect primaries whereby parties can have total control and to even determine the winner by the number of delegates who are to serve as the representative of the crowded population .
Citing what reportedly took place in Anambara state before the November 6, 2021 governorship poll, he said the difference in the outcome of the primary which gave Senator Andy Uba figures during the primaries of the All Progressives Congress, APC and what he scored at the election, “shows that to me the delegate election is not the most dangerous,” adding, ” what about the people who sat down and generated figures individually and allocated the results in the name of primaries?”
He said based on what happen in Anambara state so far there is no perfect primaries in Nigeria and rather “we should look inward on how to transmit election result electronically as the only option to remedy our electoral deficiency”
