Nigeria’s Senate has confirmed the appointment of a new Supreme Court Judge – and they used their electronic voting system!
Meaning there was no “all in support say aye, all who are against, say nay” (which is how things were done). Voting was done via the simple process of pressing a button.
The Nigerian House of Representatives adopted the e-voting system in May, in a bid to encourage transparency in the in-house voting process. With the former voting process, House members could not be held accountable to their choices, and anybody could deny their choices seeing as there’d be no evidence.
This new system is in line with the Legislative Agenda which states that “E-voting will be used regularly during voting to properly reflect voting records of members and parliamentary accountability. The House shall collaborate with relevant stakeholders to achieve the goal of an e-parliament.”
A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, and this is definitely a step in the right direction. All that’s left to hope is that more steps follow quickly.
