The Executive Director of YIAGA Africa, a civil society organisation, Samson Itodo, has expressed disappointment with the state of Nigeria’s electoral process.
Itodo in his view when he featured in an exclusive interview on Channels Television’s News Night programme, said rather than improve, Nigeria’s electoral process has regressed in the last two years.
According to Itodo, the off-season governorship elections in Kogi and Imo states in November 2023 and the September 2024 governorship poll in Edo State were worse than the 2023 general elections.
Itodo believes that rather than improve, Nigeria’s electoral process has regressed in the last two years.
He said that the elections held after the 2023 general elections failed to meet the integrity test, with evidence of election manipulation, including pre-filled result sheets.
“We are seeing a reversal of all the gains that we’ve made since 2015 to date.
”We are seeing politicians resort to old-fashioned ways of manipulating results because prefilled results made it to the polling units in the Kogi election,” he said.
Itodo also shared his thoughts on President Bola Tinubu’s government, describing it as a mixed bag.
While the president has taken bold actions, such as removing fuel subsidy and floating the naira, Nigerians are grappling with economic hardship.
Itodo noted that the government has not done enough to address the security challenges facing the country, and there has been a clampdown on citizens’ rights.
The Executive Director also critiqued the role of governors in Nigeria’s governance structure.
According to him, there is a short supply of quality governance at the subnational level, with few governors delivering on their promises.
“The country cannot record remarkable progress if you don’t have efficient and transparent leadership at the state level,” he said.
Itodo expressed disappointment with the relationship between the National Assembly and the executive, stating that the Senate has done a poor job of holding the executive accountable.
He called for a National Assembly that is bold and courageous enough to provide oversight and limit the excesses of the executive.
On electoral reforms, Itodo emphasised the need for mandatory electronic transmission of results.
He noted that the advocacy is not to replace the manual process with the electronic process but for both to go hand in hand, serving as a check on each other.
“I’d say that electronic transmission is not a priority issue in some of the conversations that I have heard with the lawmakers, and I think that it’s important for citizens to continue to demand electronic transmission or nothing,” he said.
