Saraki: Electoral act amendment will check malpractices

The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, said yesterday that the recent amendments to the electoral law will strengthen the nation’s electoral processes in line with international best practices.

He said this while hosting a delegation of Safran IS, an international biometric and identity management company who visited him in Abuja. Saraki said when assented to, the amendments will eliminate rigging, violence and other malpractices associated with voting processes.

“I believe the amendments will strengthen our electoral processes, particularly at the transmission of results to the various stages of collation.

“We made a lot of progress with the introduction of the card reader during the 2015 general elections and it is our commitment and determination to improve on that during subsequent elections.

“One of the things that I think is the big issue during election is in the area of transmission of results, and it has been something that we need to improve on and we need to get that done before 2019.

“I am confident that if we can get the electronic transmission right, we would begin to have an election process that can compete with what obtains in any other part of the world,” Saraki said, in a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Affairs,

Mohammed Isa.