Wale Jagun
Rep. Babajimi Benson on the floor of the Green Chamber.
The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Defense who is representing the Ikorodu Federal Constituency, Rep. Babajimi Benson, has expressed his concerns towards the 2023 General Elections.
The lawmaker said that votes might be low across the country due to the introduction of technology. He, however, noted that the development would bring sanity into the electoral process.
He made the statements while responding to questions during an exclusive interview with THE IMPACT.
Rep. Benson also said that there is need to embark on voters’ education on the effects of the introduction of the technology and the need for intending voters to allow others to be attended to when machines fail to capture them.
“You know there is a game changer and the City Boy is on the ticket. That alone would energise our people to come out and vote but there is a caveat”, Rep. Babajimi Benson said.
“A lot of our people do not study the new Electoral Laws. There is a new device called the Beavers, which means that you will only be allowed to vote if you are captured through the finger print or biometrics and if any of these do not work, you cannot vote.
“Secondly, if it works, you will vote immediately because there will be no accreditation that will make you come back later to vote and once the results are out and agents signed, results are transferred straight to the central server”, he explained further.
“What that means is that there will be no use of incidence form again. In the event that the Beavers do not work in any location, the election will be postponed in that ward or booth till another time when efficient machines can be deployed to the place.
“What that means is that our numbers (votes) will be low. Again, what this means is that we need to double our efforts to sensitise our people that will not be captured through biometrics and Beavers accreditations, that they should give way for others to be captured.
“We need to do a lot of voters’ education on this. This would affect not just Ikorodu but the entire country. I am scared that the results will not be as high as we expected due to the introduction of technology, but the process will also eliminate young voters and fictitious people from voting”, Rep. Benson said.
