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Jega, Go To Plan 'B'

January 29, 2011

I will begin by being upfront on a couple of issues. First, I know this piece is going to be controversial, but I am more concerned about us fashioning a way forward than being worried about stirring up a controversy.

I will begin by being upfront on a couple of issues. First, I know this piece is going to be controversial, but I am more concerned about us fashioning a way forward than being worried about stirring up a controversy.

Second, we, as a nation, would be really crazy if at the end of the 2011 elections we did not institute a probe into how the INEC spent the ₦87 billion (with another possible ₦6.6 billion) it had received. And if we are really serious, we would also do the same for Prof. Iwu's INEC.

On the very first day of the 2011 registration exercise, after seeing the inexcusable, utter lack of preparedness by the INEC for the exercise, I declared that the exercise was altogether nonsensical and called on Jega to change course. That article raised all kinds of storms. My critics said I was too hasty, I was being sponsored by politicians intent on rigging the April general elections, I was being unpatriotic, or I was an idiot. But such reactions are things any public commentator should get used to. Today, painfully, many more Nigerians have declared the registration exercise to be a failure. I really wished I was wrong. Imagine the enthusiasm of Nigerians; imagine the confidence we all had in Jega's INEC; then consider the woeful performance of the INEC on the registration exercise, with its resultant political apathy among prospective voters!

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I read Reuben Abati's “Why we can't register voters,” where he made an assessment that is consensual with what every objective observer had said of the 2011 registration exercise. According to Abati, “A one-week extension is being contemplated for the current voters' registration exercise, but there is no guarantee that the extension will make any difference, no guarantee either that it will facilitate the achievement of credible polls in April.” He later added, “If the pre-election phase is truly critical to results, then we can conjecture that the April 2011 polls have failed a-borning” (The Guardian, January 28, 2011). A conservative corroboration of Abati's assessment has also come from President of the Senate, David Mark: “I would advise you [Jega] to move out of your office and see what happens in the field. We are reasonably reassured that the exercise isn’t where it’s supposed to be, but we are reassured that you are taking steps to rectify that” (Nigerian tribune, January 27, 2011).

Accordingly, as reported by The Nation of January 23, 2010, President of the Nigerian bar Association, Joseph Daudu (SAN), has called on the INEC to begin work on a fall back strategy to ensure that all eligible voters that presented themselves for registration were registered.” Mr Daudu is not alone. An angry Dr. C. K. Ekeke has also asked, “Sir [Jega], do you have a plan B to register about 70 million eligible Nigerians for the April 2011 general elections?” He then added, “The April 2011 general elections may be elusive if INEC leadership and the presidency do not come up with a plan B to remedy the horrifying hitches of the DDC machines.... I suggest that driver's [licenses], traveling passports, worker’s ID and other identification cards be used to vote in April 2011 elections, while INEC and its leadership take time to work on the DDC biometric machines” (The Will, January 23, 2011).

Writing on Tell, Tundun Adeyemo fumed, “It’s utterly distasteful that INEC did not envisage these problems. If they did, they should be on their plan ‘B’ now. They need to register about 70 million Nigerians and at the rate of one successful registration in 30 minutes is certainly not impressive [sic]. Professor Attahiru Jega did not promise perfection from the start, but this is completely unacceptable. The truth must be told” (January 28, 2011).

Even Jega had earlier spoken of a Plan B of some sort when in October, 2010, he addressed a delegation of the European Union Mission in Nigeria: “We have a Plan B, which we are keeping close to our chests. We are committed to the success of the voter registration and elections on the new timeline” (Punch, October 12, 2010).

The absence of a credible voters' register is not the only electoral problem we have to grapple with, but we definitely cannot afford to disenfranchise tens of millions of Nigerians who turned out to be registered. Unlike Jega, however, I do not believe that, while still sticking to the present pattern and pace of the registration exercise, the INEC will be able to register the remaining 41.5 million eligible voters. Well, the National Assembly has given Jega the extension he asked for. Now, hopefully (yes, hopefully), Jega should have no excuses!

Should the INEC also not succeed in registering all eligible voters at the end of the extension, what would we do? Arbitrarily disenfranchising people who go to be registered is not an option. That would be a sin – against Nigeria, against its citizens, against the constitution, against God.

The extension for which no plans were initially made by the INEC may be called a Plan B; but there should be other Plan Bs, both for ensuring that all eligible voters are registered and for combating the rigging of elections. The need for other Plan Bs should be obvious:

   * The DDC machines are not networked to ensure that the data collected are deposited on a central database to secure the data and to eliminate multiple entries or to flag off incomplete data. As it stands now, it is possible to register more than one time – to register even one hundred times in different locations. With such multiple registration, it is possible to manufacture fake voters cards so people can use fictitious names (obtained from multiple registration of voters) in the voters register during actual voting. Matter of fact, it is common knowledge on the streets in Delta State that people are being paid to go register in Warri North LGA. Chances are high that this is also happening elsewhere.


    * Since the DDC machines are not networked and the information therein deposited in real time on a central database, it is possible that the information in them be lost due to accidental or deliberate deletion, due to damage or malfunctioning of the machines, or due to theft of said machines. What would happen to affected voters. Would the INEC re-register them? If so, when, how, and on what criteria? We know a number of the DDC machines have been reported missing or stolen and with them has gone whatever information stored in them. So those voters whose information are located in those machines will not be on the voters register.


    *  At the end of the registration exercise, after the display of the voters register for voters to verify that their names are on the list, what would the INEC do for those whose names are not on the register, but whose biometric data were earlier captured or who were issued voter's cards by the INEC? Would the INEC re-capture their biometric data, should it be impossible for whatever reason to retrieve these data from the DDC machines? What would be the requirement and procedure for including the names of such people on the voter's register? What time would the INEC allocate for such an exercise?


    * During actual voting, considering how long it takes to register one voter, would the INEC use fingerprint authentication for accreditation of voters? I am sure we are not going to have two or more weeks for any single election!


The answers to these burning questions would show that the DDC machines have not conferred any special powers on the INEC, more than it had before the arrival of said machines, to combat the issue of multiple voting, to detect illegitimate voters, or to guarantee a credible voters' register - with no eligible voter that turned out to be registered disenfranchised. In the end, we would see that the DDC machines have not made us significantly better off than we were before the arrival of said machines.


This failure is not because of any intrinsic inability of technology to help us checkmate the many evils that have so far bedeviled our effort to produce a credible voters register and conduct free and fair elections. Matter of fact, I stand with Donald Duke (former Governor of Cross River State) in his contention that technology is critical to our ability to conduct free and fair elections. The failure is due to the many, glaring and avoidable technical and administrative failures, in our deployment of technology, that we had hoped to magically overcome.


Perhaps – I hope so – we would have more legitimate names on the 2011 voters' register than we had on Prof. Iwu's register. But if Jega is unable to register all eligible voters by February 5, 2011, and with other failures of the DDC machines mediated registration, we would have the same problems as we had with Iwu's register, viz.: (1) many eligible voters will not be on the voters' register, (2) considering that there is now no way of detecting underage people or non-Nigerians who go to be registered and with multiple registration currently going on, we will have illegitimate voters on the register, and (3) since there is no central database for the information on the DDC machines, the register per se cannot be relied on to prevent multiple voting.


Again, we would be pretty much where we were with Iwu's register, except that this time we might be lucky to have more legitimate names on the voters' register. In fact, something tells me that the INEC would be ultimately forced to register people manually, without the DDC machines, in much the same way that Iwu's INEC did, in order to ensure that all eligible voters are placed on the voters' register. Even if that happens, it would not be my biggest worry.


Right now, Jega and the INEC are devoting all their energy to compilation of the 2011 voters register. I wish they had given this task the seriousness it deserved from day one. But it would be a disaster if the register is the only weapon Jega has to combat the rigging of elections. As I have attempted to show above, the voter's register to be produced by the DDC machines will not confer any special powers on the INEC, more than it has before, to combat the rigging of elections.


At the moment, Nigeria and the INEC do not have the information technology infrastructure and network, the technical capital, and the administrative structure for a foolproof deployment of technology-based voters registration and elections. What we are doing right now with those DDC machines is a joke. We will not be ready for this until we fix our identity mess and establish a foolproof, centralized national identity database. This is not something that we can accomplish in one month or one year! It is my hope that after the 2011 elections, Nigeria will devote serious attention to the work of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and create a centralized identity database before 2015.


With the Delta rerun in mind and lessons learned from the 2003 and 2007 elections, Jega and the INEC should should start devising plans to deal with the following:


    * How to prevent or minimize violence or snatching/stuffing of ballot boxes or intimidation of voters at polling booths during actual voting;


    * How to prevent late or no arrival of election materials and electoral officers at polling booths on election days;


    * How to ensure that election results announced at the polling booths are expeditiously sent to the collation centers and that the total from the collation centers matches the individual results from the polling units;


    * How to ensure that the final results announced at the state and national secretariats of the INEC match the individual results from the polling booths.

Needless to say, these are the most problematic things to deal with in Nigeria's elections. These are the main entry points of election rigging in Nigeria. Even with a perfect voter's register, if Jega and the INEC do not work out formidable plans, different from what the INEC did in the Delta rerun, to deal with these maladies, then like the Delta rerun, the on-coming 2011 elections will all be a “rerun” of the 2007 and 2003 sets of elections.


Jega will not have the number of security personnel he had for the Delta rerun in all 36 states. By the way, the security personnel in the Delta rerun did not stop the election from being rigged (in fact, the rigging was done in collaboration with some of these security personnel and with some officials of the INEC). Considering that he and the INEC will be conducting multiple elections in quick succession in all states simultaneously, Jega should know that all security outfits will be stretched thin. There must now be different strategies for defeating attempts to rig at the polling booths, collation centers, and state and national secretariats of the INEC.

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