NEWS REVIEW… 2023 and the INEC transparency test. Why is APC afraid of BVAS?

It’s about 90 days to Nigeria’s democratic ritual of general elections, as the people warm up to elect a new President as well as representatives in various legislative and executive positions across the country. While politicians busy themselves with campaigning and formulating strategies to outsmart one another, most enlightened Nigerians are worried about having an election that would reflect their true desires for their ailing country.

They want their votes to count and they look up to the electoral umpire to make this happen. On its part, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is concluding plans to make the process better than it was four years ago.

Although there are 18 presidential candidates for next year’s election, the Aso Rock seat is obviously a three-horse race, with candidates of the ruling All Progressive Congress, the People’s Democratic Party, and the Labour Party leading the pack. The PDP hopes for a second chance from Nigerians after it was sacked from power in 2015, the APC, despite its poor scorecard in its eight-year reign, is promising the people renewed hope. For the labour party, its candidate, Peter Obi is dangling a fresh chapter. Considering the desperation of Nigerian politicians, and their penchant for manipulating due processes, the concern for most Nigerians is having a free, fair and credible election.

The 2019 election, albeit an improvement to previous election years, was characterized by ballot box snatching, vote buying, militarisation, and large scale violence. The Open Society For West Africa (OSIWA) described it as “an unfortunate example of retrogression from where we should be”. However, the electoral umpire has promised that the 2023 elections would witness an improvement, positing that the Electoral Act of 2022 was a viable tool to ensure credible polls.

The Promises of the Electoral Act, 2022

After years of agitations from Civil Society Organisations, President Muhammadu Buhari eventually assented to the 2022 Electoral Act Amendment Bill, which repeals the Electoral Act, 2010. No doubt, the new Act contains promising reforms into the electoral process right from the pre-election activities of political parties. Some of the new provisions include, early submission of candidates’ names – no later than 180 days before the election, as against 60 days in the repealed Act, the conduct of credible direct or indirect primaries, exclusion of political appointees from acting as voting delegates or aspirants, and most significantly the introduction of technology, which include, electronic accreditation, electronic voting machines, electronic transmission of results, and an electronic database open to the public.

For members of the public and civil society groups, this is a delightful development, as they are confident that the reforms would ensure transparency in the next general election, however, some politicians, particularly leaders of the ruling APC are skeptical about the effectiveness of these technologies. There are allegations that some politicians are trying to stop the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), developed by INEC for accreditation, verification of voters and transmission of results. Although INEC has assured that there is no going back on the use of BVAS and the Results Viewing Portal (IReV) which was implemented in 2020.

Adamu expresses fear

On Wednesday, the APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu expressed concern over INEC’s insistence on using these technologies. His areas of concern included the commission’s level of readiness and the availability of internet services across the country.

READ ALSO:APC kicks against deployment of BVAS, e-transmission of result

“To transmit results, every part of the nation Nigeria I’m not sure that the network covers it, I know that even in parts of Abuja there is no network and we have from now till February when in substantial parts of the country there is no electricity.

“INEC must assure us 100 percent that as at when due in transmitting results they are ready because they spoke about recharging batteries but we had in previous elections when it says it can’t recharge,” he said while receiving a delegation from the Commonwealth Election Observation Mission.

The Use of Technology in Elections

Global practices have shown that the fusion of technology in electoral processes enhances transparency in the process and bolsters the people’s confidence. Apart from advanced Western democracies, some African countries like Kenya, Uganda, Gambia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Angola have successfully infused the use of technology into their electoral processes. Even in Nigeria, the introduction of card readers and biometric capturing of voters in 2015, have reduced, to a large extent, malpractices in the form of multiple voting and cloning of cards.

Kenya started biometric voter registration and authentication in 2009, six years before it was introduced in Nigeria. Although, there were reported cases of technical glitches in Nigeria’s 2015 and 2019 elections, international monitors agree that the elections were fairer than those held in previous years. The electronic transmission, which is still a subject of debate in Nigeria, was largely successful in Kenya’s last two elections in 2017, and 2022.

According to a report on Kenya’s August 9 election, by the Carter Centre, the deployment of technology enhanced the credibility and transparency of the election. The centre only expressed reservation in the level of communications on the technology to the voters. “Less than 24 hours following the closure of polls, scans of 97.71% polling station results forms had already been posted on the public portal,” the report states.

Should Adamu’s concerns be dismissed?

Although electronic accreditation, and transmission is instrumental in ensuring transparency, and indeed, Nigeria’s elections have experienced improvements over the years, Adamu’s concerns cannot be dismissed.

In the Anambra governorship elections of November, 2021, election monitors acknowledged the malfunctioning of BVAS in some polling units, which forced electoral officers to resort to manual accreditation of voters. The Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) had urged INEC to improve on BVAS before the 2023 general elections. YIAGA Africa also acknowledged that BVAS malfunctioned in many polling units, while the State governor, Charles Soludo, before his emergence, declared the machine “a complete failure”, after it failed to accredit him.

However, the commission seemingly improved on the use of technology in the governorship elections in Osun and Ekiti, as international monitors noted that BVAS encountered few glitches, while transmission was also reportedly done in time.

However, despite the success of BVAS, YIAGA Africa noted in its report on both elections that there was need for improvement. The organisation curated an election result analysis dashboard (ERAD) as an independent audit and integrity test assessment tool for the result management of INEC. Sharing its findings with journalists, the YIAGA’s Executive Director, Samson Itodo noted that “In Ekiti, 88 result sheets were not entered into the ERAD database due to issues that disabled data entry. Similarly, 87 results were not processed on the ERAD in the Osun election owing to some issues.

“Blurry images and poorly captured photographs of result sheets were uploaded on the IReV portal in both elections. It was impracticable to decipher the number of votes scored by political parties on the uploaded forms. In some cases, the presiding officers uploaded truncated images of result sheets. In other words, the images omitted segments of the result sheets.”

According to Itodo, the ERAD contains more findings of inconsistencies in the elections as a result of the technologies used by INEC. While he commended INEC for the accessibility of the result viewing portal and the “satisfactory timing” of uploads, he recommended investment in the training of polling unit officials, with a special focus on result transmission, and capturing of polling unit results using BVAS.

On Internet Accessibility

It is also important to note that internet penetration is still relatively low in Nigeria. The majority of Nigerian voters are in rural areas, where internet accessibility may not be guaranteed.According to a recent research report by Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), broadband penetration in Nigeria is less than 50%, while only 6.6% of the rural population have good internet service.

While INEC has gained the trust of many with its insistence on the use of BVAS, only time will tell how effective the technology can be deployed.

By: Oluwatobi Odeyinka

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