How Nigeria can conduct free, fair and credible elections! – Former President Goodluck Jonathan

Goodluck Jonathan believes that the only way Nigeria and other African countries can conduct free, fair and credible elections is through electronic voting.

The former President admitted that some countries in the Western African region have been conducting elections this year but he asked how many of them has been fair and credible.

He said this as one of the Presidential panelist on The Osasu Show Symposium.

In his words, Goodluck Jonathan said;

To me, if Africa will move forward it is not just about routine conducts of elections. This year alone in West Africa made up of 15 states, we have five states that had elections.

So in terms of regular elections, we are progressing, but are these elections credible? Are they representing a constructional democratic setting is the issue.

Regular elections, fine, but elections per se is not democracy. If the votes of the citizens don’t count, then it is as good as military dictatorship. So, from me, the reforms first get to us making the vote counts.

And taking a critical examination about the way elections are being conducted across the continent at least from the ones I’ve observed, I’ve seen that the only thing that we must do to get there is through electronic voting.

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People may feel, yes someone could manipulate, smart boys who can hack into the system and do all kinds of things, yes, but still people still use electronic system to move hundreds of millions of dollars across the world. So, I still believe very sincerely that that is the way to go.

Goodluck Jonathan served as Nigeria’s President between 2009-2015