The National Institute for Legislative Studies (NILS) has urged the Federal Government to facilitate the development of a reliable and secure online platform that will enable Nigerians living abroad to vote.
Ladi Hamalai, director-general of the institute, gave the advice at the News Agency of Nigeria forum in Abuja on Sunday.
“You all know that Diaspora voting will require an online platform that is reliable and secure. As of now I don’t think we have such online platform. I believe that the legislature may be shy of drafting a bill and passing a legislation to support Diaspora voting without putting in place such an online platform that we can all be comfortable with.
“So, what we all should do is to, in our different ways, make sure that we facilitate development of such online platform that can be reliable and secure. Once we moved closer to that we are also moving closer to the possibility of Diaspora voting,” Hamalai said.
The director-general expressed the belief that Nigeria had the required resources to ensure that Nigerians living abroad exercised their right to vote during elections.
She, therefore, urged the government to exercise discipline and the political will in the setting up of such platform for Nigerians living abroad.
“It takes lot of discipline and political will. It also takes maybe the present of strong institutions to make some of these things possible. We have the resources, but there are others elements that also have to be there. How are we sure that the system cannot be easily manipulated.
“Do we have a very good control mechanism that will ensure that the votes are secured and are not tampered with? These are some of our worries.
“Look at even the electoral system; every day we are trying to fine-tune it just to make sure we have some semblance of control because it is so difficult to control the system.
“I believe that as we continue to grow our institutions as we continue to embrace change, and as we continue to accept necessity for change and doing things right. All these things are very easy.“
