By Mike Adeyemi
The management of Kwara State College of Education, Ilorin has disclosed the reason the institution adopted electronic voting during last week’s Students Union Government (SUG) election.
Akanbi Muhammed Shitta from the Department of English/Social Studies defeated Ashileke Ibrahim of English/Political Science department with 830 to 630 votes for the post of SUG President while Aliyu Ismail Olomoda was voted Secretary with 819 votes.
Speaking with our reporter at the weekend, the Provost of the College, Dr. Abdulraheem Yusuf said he opted to adopt the same system he used during the SUG election as the Sub-dean, Student Affairsย ย of the University of Ilorin, to avoid post-election crisis.
โAccording to him, when you look at the history of students’ union election in Nigeria, it is usually accompanied with crisis and killings among students. On this note, the idea of e-voting was initiated by me back then when I was at the University of Ilorin.
โComing to the College of Education, Ilorin, the history of students’ election is not different from other SUG elections. Our vision is to produce student who should be able to come out with a novel ideas, and therefore we introduce the election which not make the student divided,โ he said.
Yusuf added, the Independent Student Electoral Commission (ISECO) remitted huge amount of money for the first time in the history of the college.
โThe college incurred about N35, 000 towards the conduct of the election, and it was interesting to see ISECO come up with a surplus income of N174, 000.โ
The provost stated further that based on performance, N74,000 was given to ISECO as honorarium and the balance kept in the account of the SUG.ย ย ย ย
He advised the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to embrace the idea of e-voting in subsequent elections in the country.
Speaking on modalities for the election, the Dean, Students Affairs, Dr. Abduraheem Folorusho said each student was given a secret code to vote for the candidates of their choice on their mobile phones.
โAt the end of the exercise, the students in their large numbers trooped to the Provost’s office to appreciate him for the initiative,โ he said.
