The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu has said that Nigerians in the diaspora should be entitled to vote but noted that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is yet to assure Nigerians that the electronic transmission of election results is reliable.
Tinubu, 70, stated this on Monday during an an appearance at Chatham House in London, the United Kingdom.
Asked on his plans for diaspora voting, the former governor of Lagos State said, “If you make contributions to the economy with the remittances that you are making, your right to vote should not be abrogated but promoted.”
“However, we are still building confidence in our democratic and voting system. INEC is still yet to assure us during this election that electronic transmission; the technology being used for accreditation, and the total votes count is reliable, dependable and assuring in our democratic process before we introduce a complicated element of ballot,” he stated.
Of late, there have been reports that politicians who are against the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and INEC Election Result Viewing Portal (IReV) attempt to use the court to stop INEC from deploying BVAS in the 2023 general elections but the electoral body has consistently restated its commitment and determination to deploy the system for the 2023 general elections.
BVAS is stipulated in the Electoral Act of 2022 and is a technological system which allows for accreditation of voters through biometrics capturing, uploading of results amongst others.
It has been described by many as an upgrade of the smartcard reader used in the last general elections which achieved some results in the country’s electoral process.
The former Lagos governor was at the world-leading policy institute and think-tank alongside the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila; Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai and his Jigawa State counterparty, Abubakar Badaru; former Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi; amongst others.