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The management of Kwara State College of Education, Ilorin has disclosed the reasons why the institution adopted electronic voting during last Students’ Union (SU) election.

Speaking with our reporter recently, the Provost of the College, Dr. AbdulRaheem Yusuf said he opted for the system because he has tested the system as the Sub-dean, Student Affairs of the University of Ilorin.

“According to him, when you look at the history of students’ union election in Nigeria, it is usually accompanied with crisis among students. To avoid this, the idea of e-voting was initiated when he was at the University of Ilorin to prevent a post-election turmoil. It was the same gesture that was extended here by the AbdulRaheem led administration.

He said his vision is to produce students with noble ideas and to ensure this, there is the need to put in place electioneering processes that would not divide them. He stated further that, the process is not costly. According to him, the cost of the election proper was N35,000. This made the students have a surplus of N174,000:00 out of which honorarium was paid to all those that participated in the election and a balance of N100,000:00 was paid back into the students’ union account.

He, therefore,advised the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to embrace e-voting in subsequent elections in the country. Speaking on modalities for the election, the Dean, Students Affairs, Dr. Abdulraheem Folorunsho said the election was free, fair and credible referring to it as the first of its kind known to him in the history of the College.

Akanbi Muhammed Shitta from the Department of English/Social Studies defeated Ashileke Ibrahim of English/Political Science department with 830-630 votes for the post of the President while Aliyu Ismail Olomoda was voted Secretary with 819 votes.