Option A4 was a simple, perhaps, a funny electoral system – voters stood in a single file and together with the electoral officer they counted 1, 2, 3, 4 and kept counting to the end of the line.
At the end of voting you could see voters from different wards in the same area adding figures to indicate that collation had started in earnest.
Option A4, which produced Chief M.K.O. Abiola on June 12, 1993, captured the hunger of Nigerians for an electoral system that is transparent and accountable.
That hunger persists today and is manifest in the numerous calls for the adoption of e voting. Nigeria has not developed to be anything near the giant of Africa as prophesied at independence in 1960.
This gross underperformance can be linked to the fact that, in the past 50 years, leaders have been imposed on Nigeria through coup d’états or incredible elections.
The soldier strong enough to shoot his way through to the microphone in Radio Nigeria, Ikoyi, gained the right to form a government for Nigeria.
Politicians undermined the attempts at democracy with money, religion and ethnicity; they set up structures at the grassroots (unemployed men and women) to engage in multiple voting, snatch and stuff ballot boxes, inflate tallied scores at the collation centres and form the vanguard for mayhem if their candidate was not declared winner.
E voting will eliminate these problems associated with paper ballot voting. Furthermore, e voting is convenient, increases the participation of the citizenry and strengthens weak democratic structures like the Electoral Commission, the Civil Society and the Political Parties (call to mind the feebleness of Humphrey Nwosu’s NEC and the crumbling of Anenih’s SDP). E voting confers credibility on the Government, and reduces the cost of organizing elections.
Beyond the benefits to the electoral system, e voting brings another golden opportunity to promote the growth of Nigerian technology. Windows of growth are opened to research and manufacturing companies each time a country deploys robust ICT equipment.
As an aside, it is difficult to understand why Nigeria, with millions of unemployed University and Polytechnic graduates, is importing millions of Pre- Paid Meters for electricity distribution from South and North Korea, Taiwan and China. The digitization of broadcasting requires the distribution of over 35 million TV boxes in Nigeria and again the local manufacturers would be snubbed as in the Pre-Paid Meters case. E voting offers another huge opportunity for technology transfer and acquisition.
Hundreds of thousands of voting machines would be deployed if Nigeria adopts e voting for the elections in 2019.
At this time, The Federal Government and the Independent Electoral Commission should be engaging local manufacturing companies, working closely with NOTAP, to design and fabricate the Nigerian Voting Machine. Nigeria is, as usual, dithering 20 years behind peers like Brazil, going by Wikipedia reports of what other nations have done.
The Brazilian Electoral Justice in 1996 launched the Brazilian Voting Machine. In 2010 Presidential elections, 135 million voters used the Brazilian Electronic Ballot Boxes and the result was defined 75 minutes after the end of voting.
In India, in 2004, 380 million voters cast their votes through the Electronic Voting Machines, EVM. The Indian Electronic Voting Machines were designed and developed by two companies owned by the Indian Government – Bharat Electronics and Electronics Corporation of India.
This is not the time to agonize over the comatose state of the Defense Industries Corporation or the outright death of the Telecommunications workshop of the Ministry of Communications. The change mantra of the Buhari administration could find a deep chest of experience and expertise in the private sector to design and produce the Nigerian Voting Machine.
A company like Zinox Technologies Limited, the most integrated ICT firm in West Africa, has proved repeatedly that it possesses the competencies, clout and financial muscle to deliver outstandingly on huge national projects with breath taking time lines.
With a soaring growth in all performance indices and a 21st Century Management team, Zinox Technologies has consistently proven that IT knowledge and deployment of robust ICT infrastructures are the key drivers of the new economy.
At the eve of the 2007 elections, the company deployed 12,000 laptops in 2 weeks and in 2011 another 120,000 DDC Machines, in 3 weeks to salvage the National Voters’ register. These are solid referrals that talk of patriotism and exceptional indigenous capacity.
The Nnewi cluster with Innoson Group, the automotive manufacturer in the lead, can yield some solutions towards the fabrication of Nigerian Voting Machine.
This is 2016 and INEC must begin to mobilize the ICT manufacturing sector to produce this machine. INEC would get more accolades if, in addition to conducting a credible election, she midwife’s the production of a Nigerian Voting Machine.
I must warn that the technology world is aware of Nigeria’s fire brigade approach to the deployment of robust ICT infrastructure. There are foreign companies, without any presence in Nigeria, who will turn this bid into a hustle, in the last quarter of 2018, using Nigerian fronts.
These foreign companies know that all they need to win a huge contract in Nigeria may be a brief case, a ream of letter headed paper, and the Nigerian factor. INEC must insist on a truly Nigerian Voting Machine, designed and produced by Nigerians. This will greatly serve the letters and spirit of the Muhammadu Buhari change administration.
E voting is yet to be adopted by Nigeria but it is the only way forward to deepen the democratic experience.
There are challenges to the adoption and diffusion of e voting – top on the list is the willingness of the State to conduct a transparent and accountable election. Politicians could resist the transition to e-voting because their ability to maneuver the process would be greatly diminished. The Executive arm of Government or the National Assembly could initiate the transition to e-voting by proposing the revision of Section 52(1)(b) of the Electoral Act 2010, identified by Professor Jega, in 2012, as the major obstacle to the adoption of e-voting. It is heart- warming that in May 2016, Nigeria’s foremost IT personality, Leo Stan Ekeh, Chairman of Zinox, had an interactive session on e-voting with members of the House of Representatives during their retreat. Shortly after the House adopted e-voting as part of its internal processes. Many patriots see this as a step towards tackling Section 52(1)(b), a pilot program of some sort.
Electricity supply has become a national albatross – all sectors of the economy are cringing from its dark reality. There might just be no power to light up the polling booths, to operate the voting machines and internet connectivity. The erratic power supply is another reason why we must start the move to e-voting now.
The Nigerian electricity reality may require that each machine comes standard with two batteries and the booths lit up with a solar back-up.
We are lucky that the GSM phones are widely used at the grassroots including those we refer to as stark illiterates. Electronic Voting Machines are not likely to look stranger than the ATM machines, littering the urban centers, to most Nigerians.
However, an early Elections Enlightenment campaign would be necessary to achieve public acceptance of the Electronic Voting system, encourage conformity to its rules and processes and particularly debrief the grassroots political structures of politicians that impunity has no place in the new system.
This Public Enlightenment must go on simultaneously with the training of INEC staff, ad hoc staff inclusive. The training of ad hoc staff can be achieved by organizing regular lectures on e-voting at the orientation camps of all batches of the National Youth Service Corps.
The challenges are numerous but the thought of transparent elections in Nigeria – verifiable, free from violence and rancor, with limited number of litigations, not full of innocent errors and deliberate inaccuracies associated with paper voting – increases the appeal of e-voting.
The desire is for successive elections that enjoy the confidence of the people while producing credible Governments, imbued with integrity.
Such Governments can reach out for the sublime and the people would follow without counting the costs. Then and only then can Nigeria scream – Eureka!
Echika Ezuka, former Corporate Communications Adviser to the Zinox Group
