Amended Electoral Act won’t guarantee transparent elections in Nigeria – APC chieftain, Onwusoanya

By Joseph Ayinde

Mazi Jones Onwusoanya, a chieftain of Ohanaeze Ndigbo and the immediate past Publicity Secretary of Imo State chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC), has maintained that the Electoral Act Amendment bill recently signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari will not guarantee credible elections in Nigeria.

The party stalwart also maintained that the new Electoral Act is nothing but a bait meant to give Nigerians a false hope that something is going to change with the nation’s electoral process, insisting also that the All Progressive Congress, APC, and the main opposition, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, would continue to explore new tricks to manipulate the forthcoming 2023 general elections in the country.

Onwusoanya, who made his feelings known in an interview with DAILY POST on Sunday, against the ovations trailing the presidential assent to the amended bill, also attributed problems with the nation’s electoral system to the desperation of politicians to bend those laws and impugn on the processes, in collusion with civil servants manning the Independent National Electoral Commission.

His words, “as long as law enforcement and prosecuting agencies remain nonchalant about ensuring that those who run foul of our laws are brought to book and our systems remain vulnerable to hijack by oligarchical cabals, even a law, making the transmission of results spiritual, will not make our electoral process credible.

“For some of those whose greatest pleasure is in the electronic transmission of results or the so-called BVAS, you can be sure that if any of those stand in the way of our politicians, they will bypass them and have their candidates declared winner, then, you head to court. If you haven’t understood that our courts are cults, then, you might as well be more naive than I thought.”

He also posited that, “electronic voting is not foolproof. In fact, America and other advanced democracies with all their investments and advancements in technology still have not got a perfect electronic voting process.

“Elections over there are still subject to controversies and allegations of manipulation. Most Nigerian politicians will begin to focus their attention on recruiting these hackers to study and find ways of compromising the electronic voting machines and lines of communication.”

Onwusoanya continued that, “few thousand dollars can actually get them some Chinese or Korean hackers, who might, even run out country into a big crisis. An average Nigerian politician believes that if he can’t win, then, it should be damaged completely. None of those rejoicing over the electronic voting aspect of this electoral Act has bothered to think about a cyber attack.

“Does Nigeria have what it takes to withstand a situation, say, on the eve of our elections or while the voting is going on or collation is ongoing, the entire INEC server is jammed. I will leave you to imagine what will follow such incident.”

The Ohanaeze chieftain, however, advised Nigerians who are banking on a free and fair election to have a rethink and be vigilant at their various polling booths during elections.

“I will conclude this unsolicited intervention by further giving an advice to my fellow Nigerians; if you are banking on free and fair election merely because a new Electoral Act has been signed, you are wasting your time.

“A new Electoral Act or old Electoral Act, be vigilant at your various polling booths, don’t trust any BVAS or any electronic transmission of results,” he advised.