Public Advocacy: Direct Primary and Technology Use By Engr. Tunji Light Ariyomo, FNSE

A few people have expressed a dismissive concern over the Buhari-Osinbajo and the National Assembly’s push for Direct Primary citing places where it was apparently observed in breach. The opposition PDP has even been reported as resisting Direct Primary.

Yes, I concede that it can be compromised especially now that there is so much money in the hands of a few that they can afford to mass-purchase votes. This was why I introduced the conditional clause “if done correctly” in my original public commentary on the subject.

The following are important points that people should however take note of:

1. Direct Primary gives the public access to truly good candidates. Often what the public vote for in general elections are recycled rotten choices of political parties. The ‘owners’ of the political party (who are by extension the real owners of the ‘delegates’) would have decided in the dark. Usually, their choices are ‘system’ individuals with tested ability to preserve the interest of the owners. Truly promising candidates with evidence of devotion to service of the people rarely get the chance (of being party choices in general elections).
2. With a Direct Primary, the masses have access to ALL (the good and the bad). This has provided or given a fighting chance or a level playing ground to candidates with good pedigree and street credibility.
3. More importantly, there are ways it can be done that money (vote buying) would become relatively useless. For example, we can automate the process with key institutions having mirror copies of the live logs to guarantee blockchain integrity and make the system tamper-proof. By so doing, people can just vote from their homes in all primary elections. One vote per registered party member. Each voter sits in their bedroom and vote from their registered phones tied to their NIN and BVN.
4. An additional benefit from this automated process is that it can prevent quasy gerrymandering (people from different constituencies crossing to vote in other constituencies) and eliminate opportunities for opposition primary vote padding (a situation where a political party sponsors voters to elect weak candidates in opposing parties) because the system can be configured to ensure a person can only vote for one aspirant to a specific office in a single political party in one election cycle. That way, if you have voted for Mr. A in Part X in a primary election, you cannot vote Mr. B in Party Y in that same primary election.
5. Finally, it will eliminate needs for costly primary elections as legitimate expenses would be limited to only what each aspirant spends on media for visibility whilst trying to convince potential primary voters. There will be no need for any type of voting booth or poling unit logistics etc that usually cost hundreds of billions in Nigeria. Each primary election voter will simply vote from the comfort of his or her bedroom.

Today, most of us do money transfers from our bedroom all the time. We all promptly embraced eNaira. We complete important forms including children JAMB forms etc from our bedroom all the time. We now pay AEDC, BEDC and other NEPA incarnates from our bedroom all the time. We just need to allow people to vote for preferred aspirants from the comfort of their bedrooms. This will reduce the number of voters that can be influenced with money.