You may not like Babatunde Raji Fashola but, three things you cannot take away from him are: foresight, intelligence and courage. He has much more than these, anyway. I watched him on TV some days ago trying to sell the idea of Electronic Voting System to us and I couldn’t help but increase my respect for him. He made a lot of sense and I hope my generation; especially those who are interested in public service (not politicians!) are learning a lot from him. Fashola travelled recently to India to be a part of the Urban Development Conference and instead of going to shop and engage in other time and money-wasting ventures, he decided to visit the Electoral Commission of India to see how a country of over 800 million people conduct its elections. Long and short of it is that, he was told about the use of the Electronic Voting System. I guess he was awed by it and he decided that the executives of the company that manufactures the machines should come to Lagos for a presentation and a mock demonstration. I saw the mock demo on TV and it made sense to me. Listening to Fashola sell the idea also made me excited and you can’t fault the logic of his argument. One, it will save us a lot of money in this country. We spend close to =N=86 billion to conduct elections in Nigeria for over 170 million people (not everyone votes, though) but, with the use of the EVM we’ll be saving close to =N=75 billion. Any sane person keen on saving money and re-investing such should embrace this. By the way, each machine goes for =N=50,000, so if he want to conduct elections in 120,000 polling units we’ll spend =N=6 billion. Do the maths and see if it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Two, voters apathy will be greatly reduced. A lot of people don’t show interest in registering and voting during elections because of the long queues and the time and energy they expend in doing all these. If we embrace this technology that will make life easier for the electorates....... we can guarantee that those who disenfranchise themselves will have no choice that to show keen interest in politics and elections. Three, we cannot afford to be left behind if we as a nation are interested in being great again. The whole world is going digital; it doesn’t make sense for us to be a stick-in-the-mud. We need to move with the time and move fast, lest we end up biting our fingers in regret. But, as I pondered on Fashola’s argument, I came up with three reasons why we’ll either not embrace the idea at all or drag our feet in embracing it. One, people generally resist change, even if it’s for their own betterment. I don’t know why this is so, but we’re largely not receptive to anything that will shift our minds from what it has already been used to. So, in this regard, we’ll need key opinion shapers and the media to help take this message to Professor Attahiru Jega and those who hold the purse of the nation, and also to the populace. There’s an urgent need to have a deeper level of conversation and engagement on electronic voting in Nigeria, if we’re keen on shedding the toga of a third world country. Two, we’re a country that revel in nepotism and large scale corruption. As long as we or our friends and family will not make money from it, we won’t support it. Trust me, the day we begin to embrace this kind of revolutionary idea is the day every member of our family will become a supplier and contractor. Those who will form the committee to oversee the purchase of this machine will either have their wives or siblings register a company to supply the machine at an annoyingly high price and still want to make illegal profit from it. The way out is to ensure that men and women of integrity (we still have plenty of them!) should be saddled with the responsibility of the purchase and deployment of the EVMs, while holding them accountable and have tough penalties for any infractions. Three, we’re a country that shamelessly boast of our loud and wasteful spending. It shows everywhere- from the way we bury the dead, celebrate birthdays and wedding ceremonies, we tell the world that we eat with ten fingers and ten toes, we don’t care about tomorrow, we don’t save and plan for the rainy days. And as long as we continue in this wasteful and reckless behavior being a great nation is far from us. It’s sad that we have a government peopled by selfish and wicked individuals, who lack foresight. If we’re a serious country, there’s nothing that stops us from selecting some of our Engineering students to go and learn how we can manufacture these machines in Nigeria and begin to produce it and export it to other countries of the world. Friends and family, when people like Fashola speak, we owe to it ourselves and the generation after us to think and take decisive action, so that Nigeria can be great again!! - Tunde Aribido.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 10:16:41 +0000
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