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LEPAN urges Buhari to sign #NotTooYoungToRun bill

By Kehinde Olatunji
12 April 2018   |   4:12 am
League of Progressive Ambassadors of Nigeria (LEPAN) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently give assent to the #NotTooYoungToRun bill.

President Muhammadu Buhari. PHOTO: SUNDAY AGHAEZE

•Task INEC on electronic voting
League of Progressive Ambassadors of Nigeria (LEPAN) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently give assent to the #NotTooYoungToRun bill.

The group noted that this would enable the younger people who have the intentions of contesting for elective offices the opportunity to drive their dreams.

Speaking through its publicity secretary, Seun Okegbemiro in a statement yesterday also counseled the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to consider electronic voting to avoid election rancor.

Okegbemiro said issues relating to non-functional printers, Direct Data Capture (DDC) machines, and poor staff attitudes toward potential voters should be shelves aside.

He maintained that e- voting would dispel fears on multiple voting, ballot stuffing, and post-election violence that accompany major elections.

Okegbemiro said: “We want to plead with President Buhari to give his assent to the #NotTooYoungToRun bill. Young people who have intentions to contest elective offices cannot do so simply because the president has not given his assent, this would ordinarily have made the younger ones to participate actively in the forthcoming election.

“We are passionately appealing to all well-meaning Nigerian to join us in urging the president to be part of this epoch making event by signing this bill into law.

“Our e-Voting proposal is for people to vote via a prescribed machine and same will record their votes and stored digitally through a safe storage medium before it is sent to a centralized location (or database) where tabulation programs compile and tabulate results.

“We understand that past attempts have been marred by technical problems such as electronic fingerprint readers malfunctioning on Election Day. We are also aware that there have been several reports of biometric voter systems failures but we insist these problems account for just a little over 0.25% of, say, card readers malfunctioned if data from INEC are anything to go by.”

The group also pledged their support to INEC in ensuring free, fair and transparent election processes.

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