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From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), has described as worrisome, reports credited to the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) that it would conduct manual collation of results of the 2023 elections.
It has therefore, demanded that the Commission provides clarity on its recent pronouncement so as to assuage the suspicions of the electorate and rebuild their confidence to exercise their rights to vote.
In a statement by Chairman of TMG, Auwal Ibrahim Musa Rafsanjani, noted that 12 million new voters mostly youths have been added to the voters register as at July 31, 2022, ahead of the Presidential elections next February.
According to him, this increased Nigeria’s registered voters from 84,000,484 recorded in the last 2019 election cycle, to 96,299,428. Rafsanjani said: “These new figures are in part credited to the long-sought electoral reforms recently enacted by the President, which were largely championed by Nigerian citizens and well-wishers. One can therefore allude that the confidence of Nigerian voters was bolstered by the recent electoral reforms and the seeming willingness of the Commission and government of the day to embrace electoral transparency and integrity.
“It is thus worrisome that the news making the rounds is a decision by the electoral body to conduct manual collation of results. For avoidance of doubt, one of the key features of the new Electoral Act towards improving the integrity of the electoral process, was the introduction of the Bimordial Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) which captures three stages of the voting process: it acts as the Voter Enrolment Device (IVED) during voter registration, performs the voter accreditation on an election day and as INEC Results Viewing Device (IReV Device) to be used for election results upload on an election day. “However, while the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), acknowledges the marked difference between the transfer/transmission of results and the collation of results, as well as provisions of the Act- Section 50(2) of the Electoral Act, 2022 which gives the commission the absolute discretion to determine the mode and procedure of voting in an election and the transmission of election results, we wish to express our dissatisfaction with the discretionary decision to collate results manually after transmitting electronically. Actions of this nature tend to stir public suspicions and rightly so to considering Nigeria’s long history of electoral fraud.
“The TMG will like to note that this action holds grave potentials towards eroding the confidence of Nigerian voters which has just only been recently inspired by the Act and its provisions, key of which is the electronic transmission process and disregards the efforts of the general public who have fought long and hard for improvements in our electoral process.
“Given the statement by the National Commissioner and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee that while collation process of results is still essentially manual, the collation officer must collate subject to his verification and confirmation that the number of accredited voters stated on the collated result are correct and consistent with the number of accredited voters recorded and transmitted directly from polling units, there are key questions to be asked.
“Why then does the Commission need to collate manually if the electronic transmission figures will prevail? We cannot afford to take two steps back for every step forward that we take.
“The TMG demands that the Commission provides clarity on its recent pronouncement so as to assuage the suspicions of the electorate and rebuild their confidence to exercise their rights to vote.
“The INEC should further seek to ensure that whatever actions are taken fowrad in the run up to the elections do not run in violation of the provisions of the Act.”
Executive Director, Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, on his part said INEC is constitutionally backed to collate result manually, and advised Nigerians to watch out for the gaps that will encourage electoral fraud and prevent them.
He said Nigerians must ensure that images of the authentic results are captured by BVAS and uploaded, insist that INEC transmit the number of accredited voters using BVAS as this will serve as checks against fraudulent practices.
He said Nigerians must also push and ensure that INEC uploads the collated results on form EC8B which is at the ward level as against uploading just form EC8A and lastly, the result must be verified at the ward level and the result must tally with the one transmitted electronically.
Constitutional lawyer, Olukayode Ajulo, also backed YIAGA Africa’s position on INEC, saying however that Nigeria doesn’t have the electricity infrastructure as well as GSM network to collate result electronically.
He said: “The new Electoral Act 2022, has mandated INEC, and this is what we can call introduction of technology into conducting our election in Nigeria. What I mean is that before, it has been in the regulation, it has been in the guidelines. But for the first time, we have a law that says section 5, section 47, section 58 and all those other sections saying you must use electronic devices to conduct election. It specifically mentioned registration, coalition, transfer and all that.
“But unfortunately, another section, I believe that 2section 65 or 68 now talks about all these things having been done, INEC still has the latitude to use their procedure or their guidelines, which now is the issue. And that is where the problem starts from.
“The problem here is that, despite the usage of all those technology, INEC still has the latitude. That means it is within the discretion of INEC, to now see what can be used to conduct the election. And the reason for this is not far fetched, because though, I must confess, I’m not INEC lawyer, or spokesperson and I’m not promoting INEC.
“But the truth of the matter is this, we should ask ourselves this question in Nigeria, are we ready to deploy technology to cover election in Nigeria judging from the fact of our infrastructure challenges?
“From my hometown, can we guarantee the fact that we’ll be able to use technology? Don’t forget that the GSM, the Internet services is not even 100 percent full in Nigeria, can we say we’ll go to one remote part of Nigeria to conduct an election and transmit data and election result to another place? It is impossible.
“Don’t forget that the Ministry of communication, the NITD and all those places, even the National Security Adviser, raised this issue that one of the problem where the technology and electronics will not be used to conduct our election is this issue of GSM and Internet services, the network cannot work.
“What electricity do we have to do all these things. So, I want to believe that INEC is now banking on that lacuna created by that Electoral law
that gives INEC final decision on which of the procedure either manual or electornics to be used. And if today, and INEC chairman should say, we are going for manual that we will not use electronics, I believe, by law, INEC is right.
“So the question is, if the law says you must use electronic, technology, which power, which network do we want to use to run the electronics and I think this is what it is. This is not politics. I’m just being simple and sincere in this issue.”
