Following the disappointment experienced by many Nigerians after the last general elections and the off-cycle governorship elections in several states across the country, stakeholders have suggested how to improve the process in future elections. Deputy Political Editor RAYMOND MORDI reports
Based on lessons from recent off-cycle governorship elections, including the one in Edo and Ondo states, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has made remarkable progress in its core mandate as an electoral umpire, particularly concerning logistic hiccups and uploading of results on its result viewing portal. For instance, the early arrival of voting materials and electoral officials to the polling units across Ondo State and the early commencement of the exercise were some of the improvements witnessed in the recent off-cycle governorship election. The commission also successfully uploaded 98 per cent of the results to its portal immediately after the election. By 10.55 pm that fateful Saturday, the commission said it had transmitted results from 3,875 out of 3,933 polling units across the state, thus paving the way for the collation of results.
However, indications are that the commission still has a long way to go in its bid to gain public trust and confidence in the electoral process, as the hopes of many Nigerians expecting a marked departure from previous elections were dashed during the last general election and the off-cycle governorship elections after it. In Ondo, for example, the issue of voter apathy that has marred elections in the country since the introduction of technology into the process in 2015 took a new turn. Observers say the excitement and enthusiasm which greeted a similar contest in Kogi, Bayelsa and Edo states were lacking. As a result, the voter turnout reduced sharply to an unprecedented low of 24 per cent. This is a departure from previous elections in the state, such as 39 per cent in 2012, 35 per cent in 2016 and 32 per cent in 2020.
Paul James, the Programme Manager for Elections at Yiaga Africa, attributed this to poor mobilisation of the electorates by political parties ahead of the exercise. He said political mobilisation in Ondo was lacklustre compared to Edo, where intense activity was evident months before the election. He added: “It felt like the election had been pre-negotiated. While 18 political parties contested, many seemed to align with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). This lack of competition and visible mobilisation contributed to the low voter engagement.”
Beyond Ondo, there has been a declining voter turnout since the introduction of technology into the electoral process in 2015. Experts believe that deepening electoral reforms by removing ambiguities and other concerns of civil society organisations can deliver credible elections if stakeholders, especially INEC and the political parties comply with the rules and guidelines. The introduction of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) portal before the last general election, to facilitate the electronic transmission of results from polling units to a central portal where they could be viewed by the public, generated a lot of enthusiasm, particularly among young Nigerians. In the wake of this development, they turned out in large numbers during the continuous voter registration (CVR) exercise to register. But, their hopes were dashed. From all indications, it would require more than technology to guarantee the integrity of elections in the country.
Experts believe this is the time to deepen the country’s electoral reforms to achieve greater participation in the electoral process and make it reflect the people’s will. They have suggested the strengthening of INEC’s independence, an amendment of the Electoral Act 2022 to eliminate ambiguities, cleaning up of the voters register, and making elections more inclusive by introducing early voting for people usually on essential duties during elections like journalists, civil society observers and security personnel. Other suggestions include diaspora voting and raising the quality of political engagement and candidate selection.
They have also been calling for a review of the appointment process of INEC commissioners, in line with the recommendations of the Justice Mohammed Uwais Electoral Reform Panel; saying this is one of the ways of strengthening INEC’s institutional independence. This requires an amendment of the 1999 Constitution by the National Assembly to stop the president, an interested party in elections as a card-carrying member of a political party, from solely determining who gets such appointments.
Other stakeholders have called for greater involvement of technology in the system by transitioning to electronic voting and collation of results. Nigeria operates a semi-electronic voting system. Registration of voters is done electronically but voting and collation of results are done manually. For instance, the founding National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Chekwas Okorie, believes Nigeria has come of age technologically to go full-scale electronic voting such that anyone with a smartphone can vote from the comfort of his or her home.
Okorie said he prepared an extensive memorandum on the matter in 2012, which was sent to former President Goodluck Jonathan and other stakeholders, including the vice president and all members of the National Assembly. He said more citizens would participate in the election if the country decides to go fully electronic “because the fear of the unknown would no longer be an issue and people would vote freely for candidates of their choice”.
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The APGA chieftain added: “This would automatically eliminate the issue of vote buying because with more people participating, the influence of vote buying in deciding who wins an election would reduce. President Bola Tinubu can become the father of our modern democracy if he decides to introduce far-reaching electoral reforms, even if he loses his re-election bid. He can achieve this if he uses the boldness he has shown in many other policies he has embarked upon. But the fear of losing elections makes those in power retain an obnoxious system.”
However, James has warned the country to progress slowly in the complete digitalisation of the electoral process. He said many advanced democracies have not completely digitalised their electoral process, because of the fear of compromising the system through hacking. His words: “Most countries you hear about have a blend of manual and technological voting systems. Electronic voting in these countries does not mean that people would vote from the comfort of their homes. People must come to a location where electronic gadgets are used to engage in the process. Some advanced countries like Germany that embraced electronic voting in the past are returning to a blend of the two systems because of the problems of hacking and security associated with such technological devices.
“On the other hand, some people may say Nigeria is not yet ripe for it based on the lack of the required infrastructure. But, we are halfway there because at least we now have BVAS. With BVAS, you can transmit polling unit results; and with BVAS, you can save the cost of organising elections because each device has all the information about the voter, such as biometrics and facials. With this, we may even do away with producing permanent voter’s cards (PVC). Secondly, the time would come to introduce full-fledged electronic voting. But, this does not mean that people would vote from the comfort of their homes. There is a need to be at the polling unit for some other physical and administrative processes that must happen at a central location where you have election administrators.”
James, a strong advocate of the use of technology in elections, said there has been an appreciable improvement with the deployment of technology in elections in the country. He added: “But, it is problematic where the human element is required to manage it. What has been noticed in elections conducted in recent times, such as Edo and Ondo, is that the commission did incredibly well in terms of uploading results to the IReV.
“But, again, the commission still has a long way to go. I agree there were concerns with the BVAS during the recent Ondo election. In 10 per cent of the polling units, there were concerns about BVAS malfunctioning. This is against the background that before the election there were commitments by the commission to improve the application of technology. The commission promised to improve in three critical areas. These are improvements in logistics, improvements in the use of technology and the administration of the election.
“However, what we witnessed during the election was that BVAS was deployed in every polling unit — in six per cent of the polling units, there were even two or more BVAS deployed. Nevertheless, in 10 per cent of the polling units, the BVAS malfunctioned at some point and were replaced much later. So, if you look at the time it takes to go through all this, I agree this should have been an issue of the past. Before the election, the commission made a commitment to deploy 4012 BVAS and that another 812 would be kept in its reserve to replace those that would malfunction. In some polling units in Akure where the BVAS malfunctioned, people were agitated and it led to disruptions of the process. That should not be at this point.”
How can INEC resolve this problem? James said the testing of the BVAS machines before an election should be made public. He added: “I know this is an internal routine process but this is a commission that works for the people and faces a lot of crisis of confidence. To inspire confidence, INEC should communicate more openly with the people. The commission would tell you they have conducted mock accreditation in 12 locations.
“But who was there when the testing was done and could certify that it was done in a manner expected the system would function? We cannot rule out that these systems can have issues on election day. But what were the preparatory activities carried out to forestall such eventuality?
“In future, the testing should be open to the media and civil society organisations so that they can witness how these things are done. It should not take more than two or three minutes for BVAS to authenticate the identity of a prospective voter. If the BVAS is not working well, it could be a technological problem, maybe the network is not okay. But, in all of this, communication is important to manage expectations.
“So, to solve the problem of crisis of confidence, the commission should manage its communication better and open up the testing of the machines before they are deployed on election day. We cannot just be talking about numbers on every election day, like the security agencies, without any independent verification that such numbers exist.”
The election manager attributes the resort to vote buying in recent times to the lazy attitude of wanting to take a shortcut for everything in life. He said: “If we look at the engagements before the recent election in Ondo State, it did not begin until the middle of October, which is barely a month before the election. They believe it is easier to wait until a week before the election, buy votes and move on. For me, it is a wrong approach to public engagement. There is a moral question to this. It makes a mockery of democracy and a mockery of other stakeholders. For instance, Yiaga Africa has been on the ground in Ondo State since September 18. Other stakeholders have also been on the ground. Politicians cannot do whatever they like because they have the war chest to buy votes. There is a moral question here that everybody needs to answer; both the person offering the money and those collecting it. I am worried that it is becoming a permanent feature of our electoral democracy. This sort of electoral corruption should not be entertained at any level.”
