As
Kenyans await the result of their presidential election, the potential
impact of the reported glitches that characterised the country’s use of
electronic technology on the credibility of the electoral process is a
subject that should interest Nigerians and other Africans desirous of
getting over the continent’s famous election-related violence and the
resultant loss of lives and political instability. Kenyan “election
officials had said the new electronic voting system broke down, snarling
the process and forcing the tallying to be done manually (Nima Elbagir,
CNN, 7
th March 2013).
While electronic voting is different from electronic registration, my
aim in this article is to share with the reader my past thoughts on
getting election-related technology use right and the critical
opportunity missed by the Nigerian Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) in 2010/2011. These suggestions based on the Nigerian
scenario will mitigate the impacts of glitches and breakdowns, help
counter sabotage, prevent electoral heist (rigging) and make election
violence unappealing while the principles advocated will apply in equal
measure to Kenya or any other African country desirous of deploying
technology in a manner that can effectively impact and strengthen
democracy. I reproduce my previous article on the subject below:
At over N89billion, Nigeria’s voter registration exercise is sure to
be one of the most expensive single Information Technology projects in
recent time. As I argued before, at the start of the whole debate about
the processes adopted, recent events and news emanating from INEC, the
Nigerian Independent Electoral Commission about electronic register
versus manual register only confirms one thing – our fears were genuine
and justified. What we had in mind is turning out to be very different
from what INEC had in mind. Technology may end up playing solely
marginal role in the success of the forthcoming elections whereas our
expectation was built around it as the major deal – as the
transformational elixir required to get identity verification right for
the voting age and permanently ensure only real living people can vote
and that only one genuine vote can come from one genuine person for one
particular candidate seeking one particular post.
At the onset, I suggested that the basic ingredients that would make
such application of technology a huge success in a place like Africa
were not being put in place while no attempt was being made to
institutionalise the registration programme in such a way that it would
become a system driven process rather than being people driven as well
as ultimately ensuring that the huge billions to be sacrificed for the
purpose served as sacrifice ‘once for all time’ in our quest for proper
identity or record management thus permanently ensuring that agencies of
government that are in the perpetual habit of asking for billions of
naira for records’ automation and identity card data acquisition can
simply be told to ‘go liaise with INEC’! Essentially, the core of my
position was that INEC as a body needed to adopt “technology use” policy
that would make it impossible for even the worst of saboteurs to
undermine the process – a policy that would stipulate the objective and
the checklists of dos and don’ts that would get us to this objective
plus the systemic controls that would ensure the processes are self
governing, thoroughly fair, beyond manipulation from within or outside
and that the data’s integrity is sacrosanct.
To achieve this, I suggested the development of a Biometric
Registration Policy Instrument as the starting point. This is
essentially a one to two page document containing codes of conduct. We
can call it our Rules of Engagement for the application of technology in
attaining credible election.
The mood of the nation favoured INEC leading such a charge at the
time because everything being asked by Prof. Attahiru Jega from the
relevant to the out-rightly extraneous was being approved by the
National Assembly. Given the fact that NITDA, the Nigerian Information
Technology Development Agency which should have provided such a policy
cover was for all practical purposes asleep and seeing that the momentum
clearly favoured an INEC led initiative towards getting it right, it
was my considered opinion that we could apply technology
once-and-for-all time to solve our recurring electoral challenges.
WHAT TYPE OF SYSTEM DRIVEN PROCESS?
I was privileged to deliver a technical paper at the Annual AGM of the
Nigerian Institution of Civil Engineers in October 2010 where I stated
amongst other things that one way of getting it right in Nigeria is the
evolution of “a system driven institutionalized approach to promoting
efficient development”. I went on to argue that it would promote
sustainability and help to “escape corruption-induced pitfalls on the
path of development”. My position was informed by the fact that human
beings are generally inclined to take advantage of systems. White,
black, yellow or coloured – human beings are the same. What would
therefore make the difference is if the system’s environment permits
subtle manipulation or if it is the type that offers a cast iron
protection that could be breeched only at individual’s peril – and
whether the rules of engagement equitably apply to everyone with equal
consequences.
That way, whether a ‘good’ man or a ‘bad’ man heads INEC would be
immaterial and whoever heads INEC would be no ‘god’ over INEC’s
processes – knowing full well that determining ‘a good man or a bad man’
in a multi-ethnic , multi-religion, multi-party and highly polarised
society like Nigeria would be quite subjective. To break this down, the
introduction of biometric tools for the purpose of registration of
voters by INEC had a clearly defined goal and set of objectives. It was
not pursued simply because Jega had a brainwave but because Jega and his
team were perplexed by intense public outcry against the register left
behind by his predecessor, Prof. Maurice Iwu and wanted to help the
nation get a register that would remain valid legally and by so doing
remain acceptable to the people.
Such a register in my opinion must help satisfy the 7 points that I identified and listed below:
- 1. Ensure that only human beings are listed, i.e., that only real people can vote
- 2. That those human beings are Nigerians
- 3. Those Nigerians are alive and of voting age (18 years old)
- 4. Those Nigerians of voting age can only vote once for a candidate of their choice at any particular election
- 5. All votes are equal and that they are the actual and only determinants of the outcomes of electoral contests
- 6. Nigerians can be assured and therefore be
satisfied after the whole exercise that items 1 to 5 indeed had been
conformed to – a kind of confirmatory or compliance test, and
ultimately;
- 7. In the event of disputes, the huge investment in
biometric technology would speed up adjudication by the judiciary and
help judges correctly and convincingly administer justice.
Basically, INEC would apply technology to promote transparency,
checkmate election fraud and restore confidence in the electoral
process. Hence, while the process we envisaged would ensure that INEC
officials like Prof. Jega benefit immensely from knowing that they are
indeed working with a register of voters that is genuine, and that only
genuine voters can vote – they are not the sole target of such
assurance. The people are the ultimate target. The people are to benefit
immensely from the awareness that the electoral system that determines
their leadership is for all practical purposes of unquestionable
integrity.
From the way Prof. Jega responded to questions from journalists and
members of the National Assembly on this matter, I had no doubt in my
mind that these were his original motivation and that what we had in
mind were the objectives he had in mind at the time. In fact, Prof. Jega
in August 2010 stated that credible voters’ registration was the
foundation for free, fair and credible polls and that the incidences of
litigation could only be reduced if there was a credible voter register
(Source: http://tinyurl.com/jega-speaks). How would incidences of
litigations be reduced if losers in an election were not convinced that
the processes leading to their defeat were fair?
Those were my thoughts then. The core issues are that the minimum
prerequisites for a reliable electronic technology use in future
elections must include the following;
- A primary policy instrument and a legal framework (PILF) developed
in conjunction with stakeholders, NITDA, the Nigerian Identity
Management Agency, the Ministry of Justice, the relevant division of the
Nigerian Society of Engineers and the Nigerian Computer Society.
- PILF must protect Nigerian voters, their primary data (identities)
and specify rules and guidelines (in 2007, many aggrieved candidates
took fingerprint impressions of Nigerians to the UK and other parts of
the world for analysis without any protective regulations).
- The PILF must support an independent cross agency check and balance.
In simple language, nobody must have absolute control over the system.
Associated agencies, the Department of State Security and similar
outfits should have and warehouse mirrors of live-logs (audit log and
activity trails) that could be cross-referenced in instances of disputes
(especially by the judiciary). These should equally be available to all
stakeholders (political parties inclusive).
- PILF should provide for clauses that promote technology best
practice, experts’ roles and best technology infrastructure based upon a
combination of options for a cross-country virtual private networks
using huge machines as well as distributing loads when necessary across a
number of machines accessible wirelessly by millions over long
distances. Part of the aims should be to support a national central
database system with arrays of exact mirrors aided by adjunct technology
that supports one-to-one and one-to-many voter’s pattern recognition
made possible through their fingerprint minutiae matching.
- Permanent voter’s registration centres must be established and
registration exercise must no longer be a ‘Sunday Sunday medicine’ to be
administered every four years but a permanent and continuous exercise
that only stops (say 30 days to election) and resumes afterwards.
- Adequate contingency must be provided with national disaster
recovery units. This is critical. It is in fact compulsory if the nation
is embracing electronic voting (which should be the ultimate goal).
Such contingency must also cover hardware, personnel, transportation,
security and power.
- If biometric technology is deployed, a change should be introduced
to the Electoral Act that would discharge the embargo placed on
electronic voting as well as enable extension of voting period beyond a
single day. This would eliminate the needs for too many voting booths
especially those often located where adequate protection could never be
guaranteed. A robust electronic technology will guarantee that only one
vote can be cast by one person thus eliminating any fear of multiple
voting that may be as well as ensure that election tallies are known by
all stakeholders in real-time thus ending the extant scenario where
results could be doctored after elections must have ended ‘because INEC
needed to carry out collation!’.
Conclusion
An election must not only appear to be fair, the people must be
convinced of its fairness. Monday Ateboh reported recently that General
Muhammadu Buhari has called for the sack of Prof. Attahiru Jega and
other top officials of INEC because they cannot be trusted to deliver on
credible elections (PREMIUM TIMES, 7
th March 2013). What is
the assurance that the replacements would be better? Future elections
must NEVER depend on umpire’s proclivity whether good or bad. Our goal
should be to evolve an electoral system that even the most evil
electoral umpire and his agents would find impossible to undermine. A
better call therefore is for General Buhari to use his goodwill and help
mobilize a nationwide support for a reformed electoral process where
even INEC would be incapable of undermining the system – where the
minimum provisions I have itemised above would be in place – a
technology enabled process, safeguarded by law, which offers cast iron
protection for the sovereign decision of the voter. 2015 is 2 years
away. Let’s start the process now.
I end by repeating my previous statement in a related article (read
it here http://tinyurl.com/tunji-speaks-eVote1) that a proper use of
electronic technology in our elections must support independent
people-driven regime of transparency, transparency affirmation and
monitoring. In essence the system must not only grant absolute
confidence to all stakeholders (citizens, political parties, law
enforcement agencies, election monitors etc) that it is absolutely
reliable, effective and beyond manipulation, it must been seen – and
verifiably so – that it is doing just that. In theory and in practice,
this is doable.
Tunji Ariyomo
oariyomo@nd-i.org
Twitter: @olatunjiariyomo
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