Nigeria is ripe for eVoting

Chams, an indigenous Information and Communications Technology (ICT) company, has said that Nigeria can leverage on its identity management solution to eliminate the operational and logistics issues hampering the successful conduct of elections in Nigeria.

The firm also assured its shareholders of brighter prospects, following the successful outcome of a restructuring exercise, covering business model, products, and financials.

Femi Williams, group managing director and chief executive officer, who stated this, said the best option for Nigeria’s electoral process is the e-voting system, which would enable Nigerians to cast their votes in their comfort zones without any impediments.

He pointed out that the e-voting system is cost effective with less operations and logistic problems, however, added that issues on identity management must be tackled for Nigeria to witness successful elections without hitches, leveraging the electronic system.

“If we use technology, you realise that you need a fraction of all the kind of money that is being spent on an election; you need zero efforts in terms of logistics, all these pains of moving electoral materials and devices will disappear.

“The problem of electoral system is 20 per cent technology and 80 per cent other factors, and I am sure that by the time the identity management problem is solved, we will do our election without going on holidays. We will not shut down activities; even Nigerians will do it wherever they reside.

He continued: “The national ID is becoming active, actually we have access to it, a lot of organisations are accessing the national ID registry through one of our products.”

Speaking further on the company’s restructuring exercise, Williams said the company embarked on restructuring to sustain its competitive edge and deliver value to all stakeholders.

According to him, the restructuring became necessary in view of the challenging operating environment in Nigeria and the need to grow the company’s balance sheet on sustainable basis.

“The company’s business model was modified from identity management to Intelligent Business Solutions, thereby carving a niche for us to be more innovative in providing solutions and platforms for private and public sector organisations. We are currently undergoing development in two innovative solutions that will be rolled out into the market soon”, he said.

The Executive Director, Finance, Strategy and Innovation, Chams, Mrs Mayowa Olaniyan, said the company has recorded many successes following the positive outcome of its restructuring exercise, including the award of the Bank Verification Number (BVN) project in partnership with Dermalog.

“It was delivered in all bank branches in the 36 states of the Federation within timeline, deployment of e-voting platform called VOTA, which is currently being used by organisations like Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), and Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), and others.

“Our Pharm IT Platform was successfully launched in December 2018 at Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) Conference. It is a technology solution developed for the pharmaceuticals industry to enhance and manage drug distribution.”