By Felix Oladeji
Democracy thrives on the willingness and ability of the people to participate in the political process. The political environment is expected to be free of inhibitions that obstruct freedom of expression. Political participation, political culture and political education are all critical elements of successful democracy. Technology is increasingly playing an invaluable role in encouraging citizens to participate in the political process. It makes information dissemination easy and fast.
Thus, political culture and political education are simultaneously being promoted by technology. Politicians have begun to deploy technology in their electioneering activities. Nowadays, candidates use social media to attract supporters. Every clever aspirant uses Facebook and Twitters to engage and influence the electorate. The same technology is also used to distribute contents that can put their opponents in bad light.
Furthermore, the electoral commission has started relying heavily on technology in the administration of elections in Nigeria. Technology is used to capture the biometric features of voters, manage the register of voters, and verify the identity of voters on Election Day. To a very large extent, technology has eliminated the incidence of ghost voters. In spite of these aforementioned benefits, technology can also serve negative political purposes.
The coming general election presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities for ensuring a secure and fair electoral process. On one hand, the country has made significant progress in recent years in improving the transparency and integrity of its electoral system. However, on the other hand, a number of multidimensional security threats continue to undermine the stability and legitimacy of the electoral process.
One of the most significant challenges facing the election is the threat of political violence and intimidation. This can take many forms, including the use of armed groups to intimidate voters, the use of state security forces to suppress opposition parties, and the use of propaganda and disinformation to manipulate public opinion. All of these tactics can undermine the integrity of the electoral process and the confidence of voters in the fairness and legitimacy of the election.
Another major challenge is the threat of cyber-attacks and interference. With the increasing reliance on electronic voting systems and the growing use of social media platforms to spread information and propaganda, the risk of cyber-attacks and manipulation of the electoral process has increased significantly. This can include the use of social media bots and trolls to spread false information and propaganda, as well as the targeting of critical infrastructure, such as election servers, to disrupt the electoral process.
As Nigeria anticipates a more transparent election, the Electoral Act (2022) has transferred the mandate of introducing technology into the electioneering process to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Although voting will still be cast manually via the ballot paper casting and open secret voting method, INEC has introduced different technologies at specific stages of the election process. These technologies were introduced at the pre- election stage, election stage, and post-election stage.
For each of the stages, one of the four interdependent technologies will be applied: Voters Enrolment Device (IVED); Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS); Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) and INEC Result Viewing (IReV).
However, the tribunal judgment in the gubernatorial election in Osun State is a vindication that BVAs only lost the vote count and not the election. There is a high tendency that cyber-attacks will be focused on both the BVAS and IReV. The objective of a cyber-attack on the BVAS will be to prevent the snapped results sheet from being transmitted to INEC Server. A cyber-attack on the IReV portal may include modification of the results on the portal or the disruption of the IReV Portal from the public.
Notwithstanding, the modification of the results sheet may only be possible with the cooperation of a malicious insider, but disruption can be done with or without a malicious insider. The potency of risk that INEC should mitigate lies heavily in the possibility of both the cyber and political actors having an insider within INEC.
There is a slim connection between the BVAS and IReV portal which is the transmission of results. However, the technological process for transmitting the captured election result sheet is a complex process that involves sending the captured sheet through several servers before it gets to the IReV portal. There is need to ensure that the integrity of the captured result sheet is secured. The introduction of technology in the electioneering process now means that the concerns, in addition to INEC ad hoc personnel, will now include the technological devices that will ensure the process is transparent. While it will be difficult or impossible to bring down all the personnel before the election, it is quite easy to bring down the technologies using a denial-of-service attack methodology.
Social engineering and insider threat is generally the most important and difficult threat to handle because it is focused on personnel to be used during the electioneering process. All the technological threats outlined above somehow depend on social engineering and insiders’ threat to be easily and effectively carried out.
One major security threat is the use of cyber-attacks to disrupt the electoral process. This can include hacking into voter databases, manipulating voter registration systems, and spreading misinformation online. These attacks can undermine the credibility of the election and lead to confusion and mistrust among voters.
Physical violence is another significant security threat in Nigeria’s elections. This can include attacks on polling stations, voter intimidation, and violence against candidates and their supporters. These acts of violence can create a sense of fear and insecurity among voters, leading to low turnout and potential manipulation of the election outcome.
Already, some state governors are either denying opposing political parties access to public facilities (such as stadia, schools) for campaigns; or using administrative instruments like executive orders to fix exorbitant usage fees (N5 million) to deter them (especially those without the financial wherewithal).
Nigeria’s anti- graft agencies should partner with the INEC to evolve a robust collaborative mechanism for undertaking detailed and effective monitoring of political and electoral financing in Nigeria. Such collaborative frameworks should be deployed towards preventing and punishing corrupt practices such as vote buying. In addition, voter education campaigns should be expanded to counteract the effects of vote buying on voting behaviour.
Also, state security and intelligence outfits need to discreetly and proactively neutralise violent youth wings or militias of politicians and political parties to prevent their mobilisation or deployment for political thuggery and election-related violence. This requires timely conduct of threat assessment, profiling of criminal elements or political thugs, proactive deployment for visibility policing, and strategic communication to counter violent incentives and narratives.
Lastly, civil society organisations and media practitioners should initiate robust engagement with government agencies to evolve an acceptable guideline as a useful framework for promoting a culture of responsible use of social media in Nigeria. This will encourage users to exercise due diligence to avoid perpetrating unwholesome acts or sharing content in the social media that is capable of creating tension and violence before, during and after the elections.
•Oladeji writes from Lagos.
