A former INEC National Commissioner, Dr Adekunle Ogunmola, has urged Nigerians to shun apathy during the 2023 general elections.
Ogunmola stated this at the Distinguished Olivetian Lecture Series, organised by National Old Students’ Association, Olivet Baptist High School, Oyo, in Ibadan on Wednesday.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the lecture series had, as its theme: “Towards the 2023 General Elections: The Rights and Responsibilities of Voters.”
Ogunmola said: “There are no rights without responsibility, and one of the rights is to become a voter through registration. So your responsibility is to vote and it is about the most important responsibility.
“This is because it enables you to decide the people that will govern you. When you refuse to vote, you may be indirectly enthroning wrong people.
“People should be encouraged to come out and vote so that the greater percentage of Nigerians will be involved in picking leaders of their choice.”
The former INEC chief decried what he called the continuous decline in electoral participation in Nigeria.
He recalled that the turnout for 2011 general elections was 53.68 per cent, adding, however, that it dropped to 34.75 per cent in 2019.
Ogunmola urged the youth to participate actively in the electoral process, “as there are no polling booths on social media platforms.”
He said that INEC had been preparing for the 2023 general elections based on the existing electoral law, stressing that the commission would have to change its operations when the new electoral law was eventually assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Ogunmola, himself an alumna of the school, said that the commission had leverage deeper use of technology to strengthen electoral process and ensure transparency.
“The effect of the use of multi-purpose gadget, Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), as seen in the Anambra election and several other by-elections were clear enough to conclude that technology is key to electoral integrity.
“It also provides a better guarantee for electoral credibility than the best manual process,” Ogunmola said.
In his remarks, Prof Tunji Olaopa, of National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPS), Kuru, Jos, commended the old students’ association of the school for the timeliness of the lecture.
Olaopa, an alumna of the school and Chairman of the occasion, urged the association to engage government in a more strategic manner in addressing the challenges of education sector.
Earlier in his address, National President of the association, Dr Wale Okediran, said that the lecture was aimed at contributing to national discussion on democracy and good governance.
“We realised that we are moving towards election period and there is a very strong reason for us to educate the youth, political leaders, community and religious leaders as well as other stakeholders,” Okediran said.
NAN reports that the lecture was attended by members of the political class, representatives of security agencies, civil society organisations and youths, among others.
