The Senate has started screening the six Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Commissioners nominated by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The first to be screened as the upper chamber resumed plenary today was Soyebi Solomon, from Ogun State, who was asked questions bothering on the electronic voting system.

Responding, the nominee noted that most countries have gone into electronic voting because of many advantages that are attached to it. “We are in the era of technology, and it is here to stay. Manual election is becoming out-modelled. We must not continue to go the old way, and we have to embrace electronic election,” he said.

He added: “The whole world has gone into this and we cannot run away from it. With our population, it is not possible to expect perfect election, but with technology, we can achieve a better one.”

On how to conduct flawless elections in the country, Soyebi said: “There is no election that is perfect. We can only reduce the hiccups associated with irregularities during elections. And we can do this based on the principle of transparency and credibility.

On the usage of card readers which witnessed hitches when introduced during the 2015 elections, Soyebi: “We will train and retrain operators, and also subject the machines to serious fixing. As we know, we have different kinds of users of machine in the last election. As a result, some of them mishandled it.”

Speaking further on election irregularities in the country, Soyebi stated: “We also have problems in the area of provision of party agents. Now, they must be undergoing accreditation. We don’t want some of them to be strolling in on the day of election and tag themselves as party agents. The era has gone.”

Senate President, Bukola Saraki, asked the nominee to take a bow and go, after about 30 minutes spent on the podium of the Senate.

•Photo shows the Senate in session.

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