Owen Echem
Public Forum
Just before the Senate reversed its earlier position and endorsed the liberty of the Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC] to electronically transmit election results, INEC released a document it tagged Position Paper No.1/2021 on Electronic Transmission of Election Results. The Position Paper presented the stand of the Election Management Body (EMB) on the issue of desirability and feasibility or otherwise of electronic transmission of election results in Nigeria.
It is understandable that INEC decided to make an explanatory intervention in the heated public debate on electronic transmission of election results. At the National Assembly the issue had crystalised into hardened partisan positions. Before the general public, the issue was also heated, although the majority seemed to favour INEC going ahead with electronic transfer of results if it will help the integrity of elections in the country. That INEC found it necessary to intervene by providing the background and kernel of the matter could then be easily understood.
In its Position Paper No.1/2021, INEC laid out its case for the desirability and feasibility of electronic transmission of election results, giving the reasons why it needed to take that leap in the conduct of elections. The Position Paper also gave highlights of the phases of Electronic Voting System, of which transmission of results is one.
Nigerians must have heaved a huge relief when the Senate reversed itself on the matter and allowed the unnecessary bickering over the issue of electronic transmission of election result to peter away. We all hope the matter is now settled. However, INEC’s public statement on the matter of electronic transmission of election results exposed some tendencies inside the Election Management Commission presently, which are not helpful to the institution. Such tendencies to diminish INEC and many other Nigerian public institutions.
An unwary reader of the INEC Position Paper No.1/2021 on Electronic Transmission of Election Results may probably not see, at least immediately, the recourse by those who produced the INEC document, to a poor sleight of hand in presentation of facts. INEC Position Paper No.1/2021 on Electronic Transmission of Election Results was prepared to be a public document from a public institution. The document ought not to have been loaded with biases and distortion of facts as if it was a campaign material. Unfortunately, reading through the document, one has more than enough reason to believe that the distortion of basic facts of history reflected in the INEC Position Paper on Election Transmission of Election Results is deliberate. The writers of the INEC document were following what has grown into a pattern in recent years – an unfortunate disposition to distort history in Nigeria’s public institution for petty reasons.
Throughout the presentation of facts and history in Position Paper No.1/2021 on Electronic Transmission of Election Results, the producers of the INEC document strained to posit that introduction of technology in the electoral process in Nigeria started only ten years ago and that as a matter of fact effort to introduce electronic transmission of election results started with the present INEC leadership. That is not true.
As a matter of fact, the misrepresentation of facts in the INEC Position Paper No.1/2021 started from the very first sentence of the Position Paper. In the Preface by the Chairman of INEC in the document, it was stated that “Over the last three electoral cycles, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has consistently sought to apply technology to improve the credibility and safety of the electoral process in Nigeria”. Having opened with this factually flawed statement, Position Paper No.1/2021 followed on this flawed pattern throughout. All discerning people who follow developments in Nigeria’s electoral management system will easily see through the pranks in Position Paper No 1/21. Such attitude reduces the worth of the paper as a reliable public document.
The Independent National Electoral Commission came into existence in 1998. The Constitution created it as a body corporate with perpetual succession. So far there has been five Commissions since INEC was established. All the five Commissions from the beginning initiated policies to introduce technology to improve election management. Introduction of technology in the management of elections in Nigeria is not a recent thing, it did not start in the last three electoral cycles.
Disdain for history has become part and parcel of Nigeria. But a public institution that is expected to place utmost importance on accuracy of facts and figures is not expected to be so brazen in distortion of facts as was done in INEC Position Paper No.1/2021. That is rigging.
On page 6 of the INEC Position Paper No.1/2021, a smart attempt was made to muddle history and allocate credit unnecessarily. The document said here that “When the Commission introduced the biometric register, chip-based voters’ card and Smart Card Reader (SCR), they were widely acclaimed to be behind major improvements in the quality of elections, particularly in 2011 and 2015”. Further down on page 9 of the same document it was stated that “After an unsuccessful attempt in the build up to the 2007 General Election, the Commission successfully compiled a reliable biometric register in 2011…”
The fact is that biometric voter register was introduced in INEC in 2006, leading to the 2007 General Election. As a matter of fact, discussions about that development started slightly earlier. The introduction of the Direct Data Capture system in the registration of voters occurred in 2006. This development marked the beginning of biometric voter registration in Nigeria. The new method provided a foundation on which subsequent improvements in registration of voters stand. It was a technological leap from the OMR form that was used in registration of voters for the 2003 election. The biometric system came on before the 2007 elections. Registration of voters for the 2007 election used biometric system. INEC was expected to continue to improve on the system. And it has been doing so. That is the way it should be. The statement that “after unsuccessful attempt” to compile a biometric register in 2007, a successful compilation was made in 2011 is puerile. It smacks of a pathetic hankering for credit. Fact of history is that biometric register of voters was introduced in INEC in 2006. If a method was introduced that used DDCM and registered five fingers of voters and later the same DDCM progressed to register all the ten fingers, how can people in the same institution start claiming that biometric voter register was successfully achieved only in 2011? What is the matter with Nigerians?
Way back in 2003, INEC identified Electronic Voting System (EVS) as a goal it will pursue to eventually achieve credible elections without much human interferences. EVS as conceptualized from the beginning has four phases; Electronic Register of Voters, Electronic Accreditation of Voters, Electronic Transmission of Results and finally Electronic Voting. It is doubtful that the INEC leadership that articulated the Electronic Voting System had an illusion that one generation of the Commission will achieve complete installation of the entire EVS. Realistically that did not seem likely. In any case, the political environment of Nigeria, with the suspicion of politicians to technology, hardly made any such dream by one INEC leadership of achieving full EVS realistic. Bringing in technology to improve the process, as is often the case with various aspects of development of a social system, had to be achieved step by step. Steady introduction of technology to boost election management was envisaged from the beginning. It did not start three or two election cycles ago.
After bringing in biometric register of voters as a component of the Electronic Voting System in 2006 while preparing for the 2007 election, the then INEC leadership moved ambitiously to pilot electronic transmission of election results. As a part of this initiative, INEC installed VSAT equipment in virtually all INEC Local Government Area Offices in the country. Till today, many of those equipment installed for that purpose can still be found in INEC Local Government offices all over Nigeria. At its headquarters in Abuja, INEC boosted its capacity for receiving data from all over the country. The official vehicle of the Chairman of INEC for instance was known then with a high frequency radio antennae mounted on its top which enabled the Chief Electoral Officer to pick up signals from INEC offices all over the country. It is a well-known fact to all those who followed preparation for elections in 2007 that all Local Government Area Offices of INEC were equipped to electronically transmit election results to INEC headquarters in Abuja. But what was done was a pilot. INEC used the results from the electronic transmission to compare and back up the result which was physically sent in as the law permitted. Could it be that the writers of the INEC Position Paper No.1/2021 on Electronic Transmission of Election Results did not have access to the necessary records of technical development in the same INEC? How can they decide to overlook such background?
The claim by the INEC Position Paper No.1/2021 that “for the first time in 2011 INEC experimented with transmitting results” is again a fallacy. There is nothing new or recent in the initiative by the present INEC to transmit election results electronically. As far back as 2007 electronic transmission of election results was tested and successfully achieved on pilot level. Removing the legal restriction on electronic transmission of results has been the issue. The African has a penchant for always struggling to re-event the wheel, for no other purpose than to take credit. Such disappointing mindset has not helped anyone.
The case for the desirability and feasibility of Electronic Transmission of Election Results made by INEC in Position Paper No.1/2021 was unassailable. Nigeria’s electoral process stands to be elevated with the introduction of electronic transmission of election results. What a relief that the Senate has done the right thing and allowed INEC to take the important step of bringing on electronic transmission of election results. Democracy in Nigeria will be highly boosted by the development. INEC has confirmed that it has the capacity to do the job. The infrastructure is there too. With the collaboration of the right agencies for technical support the electoral system will make a huge leap with this further step of the EVS.
The foundation for incremental introduction of technology to improve the electoral system in the country was laid at INEC almost at its very beginning. Every leadership team appointed to INEC is entitled by right to stand on the foundation led by its predecessors. That is how other societies that have developed succeeded to grow. It is natural that every Commission that is appointed into office will improve on what is on the ground and move the notch of technology higher.
Therefore, an attempt made in broad day light within the same institution to tamper with facts and to distort history of developments of the election management process in Nigeria is condemnable. Even if some people in various Nigerian public institutions have chosen to have contempt for history such people should also know that there are other people who take record of events in history. Position Paper No.1/2021 on Electronic Transmission of Election Results is a big disservice to the institution called Independent National Electoral Commission. The document amounts to an assault on truth and history. INEC is reduced and is in fact made unserious before the critical public when it releases a public document that posits that introduction of technology in electoral process in Nigeria started ten years ago or three electoral cycles ago as Position Paper No.1/2021 will want us to believe. Or that biometric voter registration started in 2011.No institution can make progress with the type of thinking that produced Position Paper No.1/2021. INEC is not a partisan institution. It is only politicians who always deny the past and forget that institutions are not personalised.
• Echem is a Lagos-based political scientist and policy commentator