Sodiya: Electronic Voting Will Address Nigeria’s Electoral Challenges
President, Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), Prof. Adesina Sodiya, stated the need for the establishment of a stress test laboratory to validate all information technology products before they are released to the market, among their sundry issues. Emma Okonji presents the excerpts:
There have been complaints about substandard products in the Nigerian technology market space. How has the implementation of local content policies helped in addressing the issue?
Of course, there are policies on local content in Nigeria coupled with the Executive Orders, but the challenge is that we are not yet there, when it comes to local content development. What people normally tell us is that we must get our products at par with the foreign counterparts. There has been clamour for standard information technology (IT) products from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and software development, but I want to reiterate that there is no software need of this nation that cannot be developed locally. On hardware, we have challenges to drive that area. Nevertheless, we need to test and evaluate these solutions before selling or deploying them. You do not horridly put up a system or software and push it out without subjecting to different testing procedures. There was a situation where a school secured computers from an indigenous OEM through NITDA and they told us that within three months some of the systems packed up. We need to do a lot of evaluation, validation and stress tests before we push products into the market. That is why the foreign counterparts keep waxing stronger. NCS thought of setting up testing lab to champion endorsement program for products going into the Nigerian market, but when the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) came on board with the same idea, we decided to relax ours. We have since been reminding NITDA of the need to build a testing laboratory in the country. Such laboratory will help increase our indigenous products’ competitiveness across the globe.
As an advocacy group, what is NCS’ position on electronic voting system for Nigeria?
The electronic voting (e-voting) system we are using as IT professional body, has features that can assist any organisation to have free and fair voting process. It has auditing features, among others. As a body we have been canvassing for e-voting in Nigeria. We have written the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on this. E-voting is a sensitive platform, but it will work perfectly if we want it to work. The effectiveness depends on the managers, and that is why we will continue to preach e-voting for Nigeria. At a point we received information that INEC met with vendors for possible supplying of e-voting machines, and we frowned at that because you can’t start deploying such technology without sampling the opinion of stakeholders. NCS wasn’t invited. We have to get it right from the foundational level. E-voting is more technically inclined than the politics itself. It is completely a professional issue. You have to be concerned with the privacy issue, the security; you have to be sure people are not coerced to vote. There are so many things to check in e-voting system, but it is surely the right way to go. One of the major benefits of e-voting is that it eliminates the physical challenges of elections like banditry, attacking of polling units and falsification of election results. People will be able to vote from the comfort of their homes and their votes will count.
E-voting is the way to go in solving some of our electoral challenges. People keep making reference to infrastructural challenges, but the platform does not require so much to set up. It is not something we can be afraid of. If we can adopt and implement e-payments with transactions running into trillions of Naira, why can’t we implement e-voting successfully? There is need to engage professionals and stakeholders to achieve it.
What is your view about the noninvolvement of IT professionals in the nation’s technology projects?
It is a pity that the federal government is undermining the technology skills of Information Technology (IT) professionals in the country, and does involve them in most of the nation’s critical technology projects. What government did not realise is that it would achieve faster and better results when indigenous IT professionals are involved in national technology projects. The idea of depending on foreign IT professionals to execute sensitive government projects, puts citizens’ sensitive data at risk and it encourages capital flight in the process.
NCS has experts in all areas of Information Technology. We have professionals with global competitive skills that we need as a nation to drive our IT projects, especially the drive towards achieving digital economy by digitizing all government processes. Government needs to look inwards to support indigenous IT professionals by providing enabling environment. Recently, a member of NCS, developed and launched home grown solution called Konn3ct, designed for online meetings and conferences that could favourably compete with the likes of Zoom, Microsoft Team, and Webex. Such person needs government support and the enabling business environment to perfect the solution and develop more for the country.
Apart from the IT skills of NCS members, how can the skills from FinTech players who are technology startups, be harnessed?
The FinTech industry is another area where Nigeria has a pool of tech talents that are driving digital transformation in the financial industry sector. With the development of the Financial Technology (FinTechs) startups, the banks are beginning to understand that they can’t continue to look outside. The federal government must also develop the Fintech industry further and replicate the digital transformation of the banking sector in all the Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) of government, who are slow to digital transformation and who still want to retain the old system of communication. On our part, NCS will continue to educate and engage government in series of discussions that will help fast track digital transformation.
Government’s IT projects have been lopsided, as rural communities appear not to be benefitting from most of the technology projects that have been established by government. What could be responsible for this?
Your observation is right and the reason why it has rural communities have not been benefitting from government’s projects, is because government tends to focus more on city development. To address this divide, government must domesticate its broadband policies, through the domestication of the office of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) across the states and local government areas of the country. When this is achieved, it will ease the decision making of government in matters of IT projects, which will in turn ease the deployment of government services. The federal government will need to make that sacrifice of domesticating broadband policies if government is really serious about developing rural and unserved communities.
NCS, as an advocacy group, has been calling on the federal government and state governors to domesticate the office of NITDA across different states, including other government agencies like Galaxy Backbone. If this is achieved, development across the country will happen faster, especially in the area of infrastructure deployment. The idea of government operating from a single office of NITDA in Abuja, will slow development across the country. This is true because it will be difficult to stay in Abuja and make policies that affect rural areas when it comes to infrastructural deployment. NCS commends the current initiative of NITDA to build ICT hubs in each of the six geopolitical zones, but government could build more hubs if we have NITDA’s offices located in all the states and local government areas of the country.
As the umbrella body of IT professionals, interest groups and stakeholders in the country, what is NCS doing to bring all IT practitioners and IT groups in the country under one platform that could be accessed by government and different organisations who need IT services?
We are working assiduously to ensure IT groups come under the umbrella body of NCS. So far it has been good. You will notice the proliferation of IT stakeholders and interest groups all over the country. We are working to make sure they come under one umbrella body to give us stronger collective voice. As an umbrella body of all IT professionals, interest groups and stakeholders in the country, NCS is planning to do several things, one of which is pushing for the appointment of IT professionals into the boards of all the agencies, especially IT related institutions. There are case where IT directors of most institutions, do not have the relevant IT skills and they are just occupying those positions without adding value to the system. This abnormally exists in tertiary institutions, research institutions and government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). We want square pegs in the square holes going forward.
What is NCS doing to assist the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to achieve its mandate?
We are monitoring the registration of the National Identification Number (NIN), as well as SIM registration and integration, which are being carried out by NIMC. The government agency is doing well, but it still needs the support of NCS to deliver on its mandate. A situation where we still have silos of databases in the country, does not speak well of us a country. So we need a single database where all the different databases will be harmonized into a single database and NIMC needs the support of NCS to achieve this. By the time we have a robust single database, our national security challenges will be easy to manage and control.
The federal government recently lifted ban on new SIM cards registration. Would you say the purpose of placing the ban in the first place has been achieved?
Talking about security issues in the country and how we have been able to tackle them vis-a-vis the policy that the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy brought to bear some times ago, it is obvious that as a nation, we actually needed to link the SIM cards with our National Identification Number (NIN), in order to address our security challenges in the country. The policy is actually a good one, because it will help us get the true identity of Nigerians. There are many foreigners in this country that we know nothing about them. Some of them ran to this country without proper documentations. Essentially, it is a good thing that government took the bold step towards ensuring that all Nigerians are registered and have valid NIN that could be traced from a single database. Coming back to your question about whether the purpose of the ban was achieved before the lifting of the ban, I will say the security challenges we have in Nigeria are still there even with the NIN registration. I think as at the last count the total number of registrations was over 70 million, but Nigeria’s population is over 200 million now. So that shows that we have not also gotten to 50 per cent registration. One could have expected that the majority of Nigerians by now should have been registered. Don’t forget that the immediate registration target was meant to close in January 2021, but it was extended and the Ministry has continued to extend it. The truth is that we cannot as a nation, completely solve security problem in this country overnight, especially if you don’t have a safe and secured national database. We’re also talking about adopting technology to solve the security challenges. The primary technology here is a valid national database.
So government policy has not yielded the kind of results that we are expecting because not everybody has registered.
In this situation, what should NIMC do to achieve faster results?
We are encouraging NIMC to continue in this direction of ensuring that all Nigerians get registered with a valid NIN. NIMC should also continue with its mobilisation and encouraging if citizens to enroll. There are times when force fails to achieve the desired result. We have seen that even with the threats by the federal government when it said that failure to register within certain period, the SIM card will be disconnected. Even with the policy, registration hasn’t improved as desired, but we take solace in the fact that we have moved from our past situation. Definitely we shall get it right, because a time is coming when NIN will be needed for JAMB examinations and in the filling of certain government documents.
You said the NIN-SIM integration policy is good, although insecurity persists. Do you see the NIN-SIM integration as a measure to address insecurity in the country?
Okay, let me start by saying that when the present government came on board, about six years ago, NCS was pushing at that time, for the need for this country to have a national integrated database. And we were talking to the then Secretary to Government of Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal. In fact, NCS at that time constituted a committee to come up with a model that is suitable for this nation; a model that we can use to actually integrate our different databases. We actually made a presentation to the SGF. We also made other proposals including suggesting the policy of whistle-blowing. The government adopted that policy without even recognising NCS that presented it to government. So NIN-SIM registration and integration will definitely address insecurity in the country if only we have a single database. Talking about the issue of databases operating in silos, I can tell you that the country is even wasting resources, where the National Population Commission(NPC) operates its own database, the Immigration Service operates a separate database, the Police, Customs, and other agencies of government also operate databases in silos. So, our presentation centered on the fact that we must have a primary record. The primary and/or foundational record will harmonise these different databases. And that is the direction that NIMC is going now. Don’t forget NIMC had told us not to expect any plastic card. What is important now is the NIN.
Despite Executive Orders and the claims by government that there are some improvements in the area of doing business, communities still complain of harsh business environment. What is your assessment about the Ease-of-Doing Business in Nigeria?
To start with, we cannot disassociate the issue of ease-of-doing business from the attention been given to the local government administration. The aspiration of any business owner is to ensure that the business thrives. Nigerians are super intelligent, looking at the products and services our people are coming up with. In a situation where you have a 24-hours business that relies on power generating sets for about 20 hours per day, then it becomes difficult for that business to survive. Before government came up with the Executive Orders, we have had other policies aimed at ensuring ease-of-doing business, but the issue has been multiplicity of agencies playing almost same roles. If you consider the indicators of ease-of-doing business, Nigeria still tilts towards the end. Government needs to concentrate on providing the basic amenities that will impact the small and medium scale businesses positively. At NCS, we will continue to provide the necessary assistance to our members. It is when their business flourishes that they can support the umbrella body. We have a building project on-going, but in the last two years we have not received support from corporate organisations. They would want to support, but the environment isn’t favourable, coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic that affected global economy mostly last year.
Nigeria has a new national broadband target of 70 per cent penetration by 2025. Do you see the country achieving that target based on the infrastructure on ground?
Yes, this question directly speaks to me, because I am a member of the broadband implementation steering committee. Our focus presently is how to extend bandwidth to underserved and unconnected areas of the country. The government is looking at connecting tertiary institutions and secondary schools, and hubs that will connect SMEs. The targets are actually towards low-income businesses so that any business could be able to promote products and services online. There are considerations for the government to provide assistance to the Infrastructure Companies (InfraCos), but most of the complaints from operators are right-of-way (RoW) charges, cost of deployment and other multiple charges. For the RoW the federal government pegged it N145/per linear meter. Some states have adopted rate and others have even extended theirs to zero naira charges while the rest are still considering what to do. However, the challenge now is about other hidden charges that the sates are leveraging to milk the telecoms companies. Government has been engaging the Governor’s Forum and will continue to discuss with them.
For the target, I see a possibility of achieving the broadband target and we are coming up with strategies towards achieving the 70 per cent broadband penetration target by 2025.
As NCS President, what are your challenges and achievements in the last one year?
When you come to an office with clear intentions and have put strategies in place, you are not going to find some of the things difficult to pursue. Before I became the president I was in the National Executive Council (NEC) of NCS for about eight years. I am fully aware of developments in NCS. So running a society like NCS is more of serving the interest of members. Many of them are joining the association for professional development. So, they will measure your performance based on how well they are gaining in that area. Therefore, we considered serving members’ interest as crucial. We have focused majorly on education, bringing members to speed with emerging technologies. Don’t forget that this is a dynamic discipline with changes almost daily. We have had a number of capacity building programs in the last one year. In the area of research and development, we have created digital library for our members. All our articles and journals are now available to members online. On NCS-government relationship, we have stepped up engagements and continue to make impacts on policy developments. In areas where we needed to challenge the government, we have done that constructively.
In the area of membership, we have continued to attract attention of practitioners who weren’t considering joining NCS before now. During our induction ceremony last year, we were able to get 800 new members. That means our efforts are paying off. We have set new targets for this year. We are looking at getting up to 1000 IT practitioners for induction this year. We used to be members of the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP). At a point our membership was terminated, but now we have been reconnected to the body. We have also renewed our membership with the British Computer Society (BCS), and more international recognitions are coming to NCS. As for the challenges, they are not peculiar to NCS. The challenges are faced by all professional bodies, and some are about funding to executive programs. There are many things we set out to accomplish but have been delayed due to funding.