Technology can make election petitions be concluded in 14 or 21 days says Falana

Femi Falana (SAN), a constitutional lawyer, has said that only technology can resolve or conclude election petition issues in 14 or 21 days.

“Now I am saying that if you conduct an election in February, if you embrace technology and make it work, we can conclude election petitions in 14 or 21 days,” Falana said when he appeared as a guest on the Arise Television Prime Time programme on Friday to discuss the electoral petition issues and pre-inauguration matters as they concern the incoming administration.

He noted that with the advent of the Bimodal Verification System (BVAS) and iRev, if fully utilised, issues on election matters such as the presidential election could be resolved within a month before the inauguration.

The constitutional lawyer admitted that the Uwais electoral panel, which provided some recommendations, could have helped guide us in the right direction, but again insisted that only technology can help grow our electoral system.

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He said, “We have gone beyond the Uwais panel; we just have to embrace technology. The Uwais didn’t think that we were going to have BVAS. The Uwais panel was crucial; it suggested that we should have enough time, let’s say six months, to conduct the election six months before the inauguration so that all the petitions would have been concluded.”

Falana cited the Kenya example, insisting that if the East African country can adopt technology that has helped deal with election petition issues within 14 days, he doesn’t know why Nigeria can’t follow that line.

“So if it is working in Kenya and some other African countries, why can it not work in Nigeria? For instance, I am talking of the presidential election, if we had gone electronic, you don’t need to go to the court of appeal.  Now, if you go electronic, you don’t need to have a governorship election. You don’t need to have three stages—now that is the only one. Governorship elections would start with the election tribunal, the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court.

“All the other two stages—so we need to have a uniform electoral act that would capture the fears of Nigerians,” he said.

He, however, agreed with the interviewer that it requires a constitutional amendment to make it operational and effective.

“For me, it does require constitutional amendment because right now the constitution provides for six months. The time that provision was entrenched in the constitution, the drafters never thought we were going to go electronic,” he said.

He was critical of administrations after the late President Umaru Musa Yaradua, accusing them of benefiting from the loopholes in the current electoral system. He accused them of ignoring the Uwais report, which recommended that election tribunal issues be resolved within six months.

“The man who set up the panel—the electoral reform panel—the late Yaradua—could not implement the provisions,” Falana said, insisting that if successive governments after the late Yaradua had implemented his electoral reforms, it could have saved us from the technicality of taking more time to resolve electoral issues.

“All the other regimes have decided to maintain the status quo because they profit from it, and all the legislators also want to take advantage of the loopholes in the system to keep themselves in office,” he added.