Ikuforiji urges INEC to adopt LASU’s e-voting system

The Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji, on Monday, advised the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to adopt a unique electronic voting system devised by the students’ union of the Lagos State University, LASU.
 
Mr. Ikuforiji said at a media briefing in Lagos that the e-voting system introduced by the students of the state university was worth a try.
“I am excited to witness such a workable and successful innovation. It shows that Nigeria will get there with the right leadership. The same LASU that was known to harbour notorious students years back now has good student leadership who developed e-voting.

“As we can see, the system is successfully working and no sector of the country has such record. If LASU can produce this, INEC should come and invest here, rather than going to overseas to bring experts,” he said.

The Dean, Student Affairs at the university, Kabir Akinyemi, said the institution had invested more than N1 million to support the project.
According to him, the students suggested to the authorities that they wanted to use e-voting system for the election to curb manipulation and multiple voting.

“The innovation was first introduced by a student last year during their faculty election, but it was adopted for the union’s election. A test-run was carried out last week and the problems detected during the demonstration were overcome,” Mr. Akinyemi said.

The Head, Information Communication Technology Department, Olatunde Oni, also applauded the innovation. He noted that two final year students of Electronic and Computer Engineering Department developed the software as their project.
“It was the software they developed that the ICT department worked on and modified when the students clamoured for an e-voting election. To the best of my knowledge, LASU may be the first university to conduct an e-voting election,” Mr. Oni said.

He disclosed that provisions were made for over 8,000 registered students to vote simultaneously at the four campuses:  Ojo, Epe, Ikeja and Surulere.
“Eighty computers were installed in the Ojo campus, while the other three campuses had 20 each. All the students need to do is to go with his or her matriculation number to any of the voting centres and exercise the voting right and get it done in two minutes,” he explained.

A 400-level student of Computer Science, Rasaki Olakunle, who was an electoral observer, lauded the peaceful and transparent conduct of the poll.
“The process was peaceful, fast and reliable,” Mr. Olakunle said.