Calls For Diaspora Voting Diversionary – Don

A university don and political analyst, Dr. Ken Nweke has faulted calls for the introduction of diaspora voting in Nigeria, describing it as a distraction from the realities she is confronted with.
Nweke, who is an associate professor of Political Science at the Ignatius Ajuru University of Education stated this when he featured as a guest on a live radio programme in Port Harcourt monitored by The Tide.
Recall that the Federal Government had urged the National Assembly to approve diaspora voting, even as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) kicked against it, saying Nigeria was not ripe to handle such voting practice.
Corroborating INEC’s stance, Nweke said diaspora voting is strange to Nigeria and its citizens, stressing the need to first strengthen the electronic voting system before thinking of the diaspora voting.
Though he said Nigerians living abroad are citizens who have the rights to exercise their franchise, the country was not yet ready to take on diaspora voting due to the myriad of issues facing the country.
“That is a bit strange to Nigeria and Nigerians. When you talk about diaspora you talk about offshore, Nigerians living abroad simply having access to our voting system, so to say, or being givien the right to participate in Nigeria’s elections.
“They are Nigerians we are talking about who also have some rights and they are citizens like I said and they ought to have rights to express their feelings as long as choosing who leads them is concerned. But here we have a lot of challenges, a lot of hurdles to grapple with and we have not been able to deal with the myriad of issues that we have in our electoral process much less to talk about diaspora voting. We have been having challenge of electronic voting.
“We have not been able to introduce electronic voting system in Nigeria at least to ascertain that it is working and working perfectly before you can now extend it beyond the boarders of Nigeria. So, calling for diaspora voting at this stage, for me, is a mere distraction from the realities that we face as a nation. People have been calling for electronic voting and even the card reader has been a problem and, of course in most cases card readers fail”, Nweke said.

By: Dennis Naku