When Jega Appeared Before the Senate
For over three hours, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, was in the saddle on Wednesday, answering questions from senators on the forthcoming polls. Omololu Ogunmade captures notable issues during th
Senators who expected the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, to clear the air on the sanctity of March 28 and April 11 2015 election dates, left the chamber disappointed on Wednesday as Jega failed to make an assertive declaration on the matter. The INEC boss, who appeared before the Senate to explain why the elections initially scheduled for February 14 and 28 were postponed as well as the level of the commission’s preparedness for the use of card readers at the polls, said on Wednesday that the question should be directed to service chiefs at whose instance he said the elections were postponed.
However, the sanctity of the new election dates was only one of the reasons the Senate summoned the INEC chairman. The Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, while moving the motion summoning Jega to the chamber last Tuesday, had insinuated that INEC’s plan to use card reader (CR), an electronic device for the conduct of the elections, contravened the provisions of Electoral Act 2010 which he said prohibited electronic voting in the country.
But Jega who was led into the chamber and accompanied by his aides at about 11.42 am on Wednesday, first made a presentation for about 30 minutes before proceeding into the question and answer session which lasted for three hours.
He dismissed the insinuation that the use of card readers (CR) during the forthcoming polls would violate the provisions of both the Electoral Act as well as the 1999 Constitution.
Hear him: “Whereas Section 52 of the Electoral Act prohibits the use of electronic voting, the card reader is not a voting machine and it is not used for voting. It is merely an electronic devise introduced to improve the integrity of the voting process. It should be remembered that Section 78 and Section 118 of the constitution grant INEC the powers to register voters and to conduct elections in Nigeria.”
With the issue of the legality of CR laid to rest, the former university don proceeded to enumerate the functions of the device as well as its components. According to him, it will only be deployed for accreditation and not voting. He also explained that the time of its usage would last for five hours - from 8am to 1pm - on election days adding that any voter who does not arrive within this time frame would not be accredited.
Benefits of Card Readers
With 182,000 card readers purchased in China and 503 of them not functioning, Jega disclosed that the items were tested in Texas, the United States where he said its functionality and durability had been ascertained. According to Jega, these 13 specific tests conducted on the device in America dwelt on its functionality, durability and versatility, disclosing that all the tests were successful. He then proceeded to list the benefits accruable from deploying card readers for the election.
“Using the card reader has enormous advantages. First, once the card reader is configured, it can only read permanent voters’ cards (PVC) issued by INEC at the polling unit that it has been configured. Second, it reads the embedded chip card code. Third, it enables authentication of the identity of the voters by matching his or her finger print with that code on the chip of the card. Four, it keeps a tally of all cards read and all cards verified or authenticated with all their details including the time when this was done.
“Five , this information can be sent to a central server using an sms. Six, the stored information on the server will enable INEC to audit results from polling units as well as do arrangement of statistical analysis of the demographics of voting - something INEC has never been able to do effectively. Seven, the ward collation officer can use this information to audit polling unit result sheets and to determine whether accreditation figures have been altered, a common feature of electoral fraud in our jurisdiction,” he disclosed.
How it Works
Jega explained that using the card reader begins with the prospective voter presenting his PVC to the electoral officer at the polling station. The officer, he said, would insert the card into the CR for the purpose of certifying the authenticity of the PVC. If the card is rejected by the device, that means it was not produced by INEC. But if it certifies it, that means the voter’s identity exists on INEC’s register and hence, will be given a ballot paper preparatory to vote.
He said: “Anybody intending to vote shall present himself with his voter card to a presiding officer who shall certify him or her that the person on the card is on the register of voters before issuing such a person with a ballot paper. The use of the card reader for the purpose of accreditation of voters is one of the innovations introduced by the commission to improve the credibility of the electoral process, in particular, the accreditation process.
“It is not offensive to the Electoral Act or to the constitution. It adds value to the desires of Nigerians to have a credible election in line with international best practice.”
Problems Associated with Card Readers
The use of the device, Jega explained, would not be automatic and total because its use is associated with attendant challenges. Notwithstanding, he was quick to express hopes that enough preparation would be made to mitigate the effects of emerging challenges. Some of the problems began to manifest when some of the senators’ PVCs were tested in the chamber on Wednesday.
While the device is expected to accredit each voter within 30 seconds, it did not take less than one minute to complete the accreditation of each senator. But Jega explained that it took additional 30 seconds because the polling station of each senator had to first be configured into the CR. This, he said, would not be necessary on election day since each polling station would have been incorporated into each CR ahead of voters’ arrival.
However, it was discovered that Senator Chris Anyanwu’s card was blurred when inserted into the device while Senator Chris Ngige’s finger prints did not show during the process.
Jega said: “Using the card readers has too many challenges. What if a card reader fails; what if a person is verified and his finger print cannot be authenticated. We have worked together with all political parties and agreed on what to do if any of these arises. In the likely event that a card reader fails, we have enough spares to deploy before the end of the accreditation at 1pm.
“If we cannot replace before the end of accreditation, then the election in that particular place will be postponed to the following day when a new card reader will be provided for the election and we agreed with political parties to do this because if you say if a card reader fails, we go back to mannual voting, we are worried that everywhere, we will revert to manual because there are many people who don’t want card readers to be used.
“If a voter’s PVC has been read and the details have been verified but his finger print cannot be authenticated or he or she has no fingers, an incidence form will be written by the presiding officer at the voting point and the voter will then be accredited. Party agents and observers will be there to testify to this.
“In the next six weeks, the commission hopes to utilise the period of extension to organise more public enlightenment programme and use of the card reader but we have already done a number of tests. We have tested these card readers in a pilot scheme here in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and some of the states.
“We have sent national commissioners to supervise the distribution of PVCs and they went with technical officers and the card readers and wherever they went as people were collecting their cards, they were also checking to see whether the cards could be read. In general, we are satisfied with the result.
The likelihood of the card reader failing is slim. We had solid legal advice and we do not believe it violates legal provisions. It is not electronic voting; it is verification. There is a difference between voting and the voting process and there is nothing in the Electoral Act or the constitution that says you cannot use card reader.
Court, Stay off
Jega was swift to dismiss insinuations that the use of CR might be challenged in the law court which some senators said might stall the process and result in a setback for the polls as planned. This is moreso that no alternative arrangement had been made for voters’ accreditation. But Jega dismissed this notion with a wave of his hand. “Anybody can go to court on anything but we believe we have not done anything wrong,” he said.
Postponement as Blessing
Allegations by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that INEC was not prepared for the aborted polls were confirmed by Jega at the session when he said the time created by the postponement offered the commission the opportunity to be more adequately prepared for the polls. For instance, Jega’s submissions showed that the card reader had not been tested anywhere in Nigeria before the postponement which implied that the commission would have proceeded to the elections as scheduled earlier without any dressed rehearsal to ascertain the effectiveness of its equipment. Another testimony to this fact is his submission that INEC will use the period to train its over 700,000 adhoc staff for the polls, leaving many with the question - what has INEC spent the last four years doing if till date its adhoc staff have not been trained?
Another perception of INEC’s unpreparedness for the elections was Jega’s disclosure that up till now, as many as a million cards had not been produced. This implies that these voters would have been disenfranchised if the polls had held as scheduled. Besides, some contes- tants who could have won elections might lose as a result of this development especially if the bulk of the yet to be produced cards belong to their party members. Even then, there seems to be no guarantee that these cards will eventually be delivered and accordingly distributed and be available for voting before March 28. This is because most of the owners of the cards had gone for collection several times and had been forced to withdraw interest in further efforts to get the cards as a result of frustration. The consequence of this is that such voters would be disenfranchised.
“In summary, it can be noted that INEC has forged ahead with the preparations for the conduct of the 2015 general elections as rescheduled for March 28 and April 11. We believe that the period of extension has offered us an opportunity to further perfect the electoral process for the delivery of free, fair, credible and peaceful elections to the satisfaction of the yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians. We hope that all stakeholders will continue to join hands with the commission to turn this disappointment into a blessing for our country,” he said.
He added that the postponement had offered INEC the opportunity to intensify voter education and public enlightenment on election day procedures. He also said the period had offered “the resident electoral commissioners the opportunity to intensify arrangement for election day transportation in consultation with the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in the context of an MoU (Memoranda of understanding) which we have already signed with the union. ”This means that all these arrangements were not done before the postponement even a week to the botched polls.
Duration of PVC
Jega explained that the PVC was a durable card which could last for at least 10 years “and as such it can be used in 2019 elections and we hope that as we move towards 2019, we will get funding so that we will make PVC truly a continuous process.”
Conclusion
Jega promised that the commission would deliver free, fair and credible polls. It is left to be seen as there are fears that the use of the card readers might not be as simple as Jega had said. This is bearing in mind that voters’ registration ahead of 2011 polls was accompanied by a range of frustrations as many voters got to the polling stations to discover that a number of direct data capture (DDC) machines did not work.