2023: UPU Backs Electronic Transmission Of Results, Other Electoral Reforms

By Daniel Dafe

The Urhobo Progress Union (UPU), following its just concluded executive meeting, has said that the socio-cultural body “is in full support and wholly endorses the position of the Southern Governors (Lagos Declaration) that the electronic transmission of polling unit election results must and should be embraced as agreed by committees of both chambers through the provision of section 50(2).”

In a statement signed by the President General, Chief Joe Omene, UPU, while commending an Urhobo son and the Deputy Senate president, Ovie Omo-Agege, who the body said has done so well on this Electoral Act Amendment, urged him to mobilize his colleagues in the Senate to pass a law for the Electronic Transmission of Polling Unit results in 2023.

UPU affirmed “that good laws are more reliable than good men because they last longer and do not suffer emotional fluctuations and serve all.”

UPU said that Nigerians and the Urhobo people want a credible and transparent electoral process that will allow votes to count and not a process that allows votes to be manufactured from interest groups and communities with fewer voters producing fictitious bogus votes.”

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Furthermore, UPU called on the National Assembly to pass into law the Electoral Act amendment on time for the assent of the president to improve the quality of the 2023 election.

Also, the association urged all Urhobo sons and daughters in the National Assembly to support the call for these reforms and progressive aspects of the legislation given that the restraint of the law is an important safeguard for democratic practices.

UPU added that “for most of human history, political elites if given free unrestrained reign will always want to revert society to absolute control of election process for their benefits,” saying that “only under reliable laws can we achieve the ultimate goals of a secure and stable democratic state.”

UPU therefore called on all Nigerians “to support the call for the urgent passage of the Electoral Act amendment bill for the assent of President Muhammadu Buhari as his legacy for which he will be remembered in history without altering these progressive reforms.”