Our Reporter, Abuja
Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has called for urgent and far-reaching electoral and judicial reforms to safeguard Nigeria’s democracy and return political power to the people.
In a statement posted on his X handle on Thursday, Atiku commended the enthusiasm of Nigerians participating in the ongoing continuous voter registration (CVR) exercise, describing it as proof of the people’s commitment to shaping their future through the ballot.
However, the 2023 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate cautioned that voter registration alone would not guarantee credible polls without structural reforms to restore electoral integrity and strengthen judicial independence.
“At present, the quality of our elections has continued to depreciate,” Atiku said, noting that voter turnout in the 2023 polls dropped to 26.72 percent, the lowest since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999. Out of 93.47 million registered voters, only 24.9 million participated in the presidential and National Assembly elections.
Citing warnings from legal scholar Prof. Chidi Odinkalu that the judiciary is increasingly usurping the will of the electorate, Atiku stressed the need to curb the growing trend of courts determining election outcomes.
The former Vice President outlined a nine-point reform agenda, including: Mandatory use of BVAS for voter accreditation and upload of results at polling units and collation centres, with no room for manual accreditation; Electronic transmission of results directly to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (iREV) from polling units, ward, local government, state, and national collation centres, eliminating manual collation at every stage; A total ban on manual accreditation, transmission, and collation of results; Subjecting the appointment of the INEC Chairman, Resident Electoral Commissioners, and National Electoral Commissioners to democratic voting by the people; and Shifting the burden of proof in election petitions to INEC, requiring the commission to demonstrate compliance with the Constitution and the Electoral Act.
Atiku argued that these reforms would “return the power to the people to choose their leaders and not a conclave of interested parties.”
He maintained that unless such reforms are urgently implemented, Nigerians may lose faith in democratic processes and voter apathy could deepen in future elections.
