Nigeria is about to become the laughing stock of the international community if Prof. Jega’s advisers from the academia are allowed to have their way by foisting a supposedly “free” open source biometric voters’ registration software on the Nation.
Nigeria is about to become the laughing stock of the international community if Prof. Jega’s advisers from the academia are allowed to have their way by foisting a supposedly “free” open source biometric voters’ registration software on the Nation.
Nowhere in the world has a large-scale biometric voters' enrolment project been carried out using open source software downloaded from the internet, as INEC seems to be determined to do. If this was at all possible, then there would be no need for any country to spend millions of dollars on the purchase of similar software for voters’ registration as is indeed the case everywhere. Rather, all they would need to do is to download the software for free from the internet! But the reality is that it takes a considerable amount of manpower, time and resources to develop a world-class voters’ registration software that is suitable for use in a complex, large-scale biometric enrolment projects like INEC intends to carry out in Nigeria.
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How then did INEC get the idea of developing, in a few weeks, what typically takes several months and even years to develop? The reasons become clearer when one considers the fact that this unrealistic idea originated from the representative of Google in Nigeria – Mr. Nyimbi Odero – who is apparently set to be appointed by INEC as the Consultant for the voters’ registration exercise. What is very curious is the fact that Google just recently funded a large part of a 3 billion naira investment in wireless network infrastructure for the University of Nigeria Nsukka, the same institution where Prof. Oke Ibeanu, the Chief Technical Adviser to the INEC Chairman, currently serves as a Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Social Sciences. Perhaps even more curious are the strong indications that Google is considering a similar investment in Usman Dan Fodio University, Sokoto, where another social scienties and Special Assistant to the INEC Chairman, currently serves. The only logical conclusion that can be drawn from the insistence of these Social Scientists, turned “ICT Experts”, is that Google is being rewarded with the role of Consultant and Software Provider for the Voters’ Registration exercise in exchange for agreeing to invest in the academic institutions of Prof. Jega’s close Advisers. It is worth noting that Google is not in the business of voters’ registration software and that the Google Office Lead (Mr. Nyimbi Odero) has no experience whatsoever in the complex process of implementing biometric voters’ registration anywhere in Nigeria, or in his native country of Kenya for that matter.
It is completely baffling that even when it is obvious to all that INEC is completely behind schedule as far as the voters’ registration project is concerned, it is still willing to jeopardize the success of the entire exercise by handing over the reins of the project to an inexperienced team lead by a Google Consultant, and a duo of Social Scientists who’s natural turf are the classrooms of their respective Universities. Perhaps this academic experiment would not have been half as bad if INEC had one or two years to compile the new Voters’ Register. But this is not the case as INEC barely has a few months to complete this monumental task. And to make matters worse, the Chairman’s Consultant and Advisers have decided, in their wisdom, to “negotiate” directly with Chinese manufacturers of DDC machines, who are not on the list of short-listed firms by INEC, in flagrant disregard of the due process requirements of the 2007 Procurement Act. The lack of transparency in this process is indeed a serious cause for concern as it is common knowledge in the industry that manufacturers will only deal with INEC through their local partners, which in this case will be end up being directly hand-picked by the Google Consultant and the Social Science Lecturers who have virtually seized control of the entire process for their personal gains.
It is doubtful that Google, as an International company, sanctions the participation of its Nigerian Office Representative as a Consultant in this project, given the clear conflict of interests that this would amount to, in view of the rivalry that currently exists between Google and other international software companies. It is also doubtful that the Social Scientist Advisers of Prof. Jega are more technically experienced in Biometric Voters’ Registration than all the ICT firms that were pre-qualified by INEC for this project. Their argument that UNDP is the organization spear-heading the direct procurement of the DDC machines from China is also doubtful, as the activities of UNDP worldwide are only restricted to assisting host countries in the selection of Consultants and never in the direct procurement of goods or equipment.
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