The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure(NASENI) has constructed an indigenous prototype of an e-voting machine which the Independent National Electoral Commission is considering for deployment during forthcoming elections in Nigeria.

A 20-member Inter-Agency Technical Committee has been set up to consider the viability of this innovation.

Members of NASENI led by the Minister of Science of Technology, Ogbonnoya Onu had earlier visited INEC in June to run a practical demonstration of how the e-voting system works.

INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu Credit: Guardian Nigeria

The duties of the committee inaugurated include; evaluation of the necessary requirements for onward deployment to the different parts of the nation; assessing the social,technical and operational implications of adopting the e-voting solution; weighing the NASENI solution in the event of the development of a better and cost-effective solution amongst others.

An innovation of this sort will help eradicate many abnormalities present in our electoral process. This will in the long run restore the faith of the people in accepting the outcome of elections held in our country.

Many of the flaws in our electoral process are unavoidably present in the casting of votes, collation of results and result announcing stages.

It is hoped that such developments as this will herald the beginning of very transparent, free and fair elections.