Editorial: Shedding no tears for INEC staff

Working with bad tools

If anything, one can only commend Professor Attahiru Jega the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission for presiding over the April elections the best he could despite the constraints he had.

He was bequeathed a rotten and corrupt organisation he never had the opportunity to overhaul considering the short time he had to prepare and conduct the elections.

However, the subtle but radical ideas he implemented made for elections that were quite free, generally fair and acceptably credible from the deployment of members of the National Youth Service Corps as ad-hoc staff, the voters’ registration exercise requiring fingerprint identification to eliminate multiple registrations and the use of eminent Nigerians as chief collation officers to spread the burden of responsibility and integrity.

Working the imperfect

The whole process was almost totally sabotaged by incumbent INEC staff that he inherited because they were denied the scope to operate and suborn the system; many times he had to redeploy or even sack staff to ensure that the process was not compromised.

Now, on the whole it was not perfect but it would be unfair to berate the chief in the circumstances he found himself in.

It is however interesting to read that INEC staff are unhappy with their boss for not giving them opportunities to perform their duties which they should have been allowed to do if they did have a track record of honest and impeachable service in the conduct of previous elections.

Given the chance, they messed up

When they did get an opportunity to do all the work in the states where the elections were postponed, it was a debacle celebrating a farce which made the work of the ad-hoc and amateur staff employed before seem both professional and sterling.

Besides the news story, all the comments numbering almost 70 did not find any scope for sympathy for the INEC staff, their actions have done Nigeria down, put us to shame and left many pessimistic of the possibility of credible elections until Professor Jega found ways to side-track and tame their malevolence.

If the INEC staff feel so aggrieved, they should resign, they deserve no sympathy whatsoever.

Acknowledgements

234Next.com ran the story about INEC staff being unhappy with Jega.

Nigeria: In Support of Attahiru Jega of INEC

This is an opinion piece that brings together a number of issues and events concerning service and politics in Nigeria.

The call to service

The postponement of the Nigerian elections might have been quite embarrassing but one needs to dig below the surface to the workings of INEC, beyond the reactionary calls for the resignation of its chairman to see what we are up against.

This is not the first time that a well-renowned, respected and reputable Nigerian has been called to take on a dysfunctional national organisation and found that the system in place is immune to any change that might fit with the aspirations of the new leader and the ideals that might have informed the person to take on such an onerous role.

There is every likelihood that the existing system would at first attempt to subsume and assimilate the new entrant, but if that fails the new entrant relying on lieutenants not of their choosing may be fraught at every step with difficulties in getting their agenda working.

Reputations at stake

One typical instance was that of Professor Adenike Grange who as a health practitioner was held in the highest esteem globally when she was appointed as the Minister of Health. There is every possibility that she would have had done amazing things for Nigeria’s moribund healthcare delivery system with failing hospitals, high maternal mortality and the scourge of HIV/AIDS.

Unfortunately, she never really got to leave her mark but found herself fighting for her reputation less than a year into her tenure when a directive from the Presidency to return funds to the Treasury was ignored as her lieutenants shared out the largesse as Christmas bonuses taking the lion’s share for themselves.

She no doubt tried to isolate herself from the “business as usual” setting of her ministry but as the most senior political appointee with responsibility for running that ministry she got swept away in the enveloping maelstrom, her integrity suffering a great battering.

A corrupt enterprise so foul

Now, at INEC, I will not be surprised that INEC under Professor Iwu the erstwhile chairman was endemically corrupt to the core, the system seethed with every rotten boil of incompetence, it single-handedly impugned the name of Nigeria in the global scene on matters of democracy and the conduct of elections that we never had a voice out of overwhelming shame to help resolve the electoral crises in Kenya and Zimbabwe.

For a country that has prided itself in being the giant of Africa by reason of population, resources, potential and means, we are so deafeningly silent it was more than an embarrassment, we writhed and squirmed as we watched fellow Africans use our poor example of rotten elections as a template for theirs.

It was this organisation that Professor Attahiru Jega was called to lead in June 2010 with elections previously scheduled to run in January 2011. He had to hit the ground running with literally no time to radically reform, restructure or remould the institution he had inherited to fit the promise of free, fair and credible elections that he most desperately wants to deliver to Nigerians.

The job to hand

He first had to convince our National Assembly that holding elections in January were a completely unrealistic goal if credible elections were to be expected. Until he got the go-ahead to run the elections in April he had the job of creating a new voters register and publishing an electoral timetable.

It was quite evident that the original timeframe for January was completely impracticable at best and it presaged elections that would make those of 2007 look almost acceptable.

One can only speculate about the political capital that was expended in getting the elections moved to April by those whose comforts of remuneration in our National Assembly would have preferred to be returned whilst allowing others to take the blame for flawed elections.

Nigeria is at best of times a logistically handicapped country, with unreliable infrastructure and systems oiled with corruption and graft. Getting anything done for altruistic purposes as a matter of good professional conduct might be nigh impossible but people still attempt to wade through the swamp infested with leeches and grafters who deign to collect all the way to the expected outcomes.

Professor Attahiru Jega already had the poisoned chalice; we could only hope that his immune system harboured the antidote as he drank from it.

Changes, not superficial

In 9 months, at great cost which we should not forget but within that timeframe he has had the Electoral Act modified, rescheduled the electoral timetable, registered over 73 million Nigerians to vote and is about to conduct elections that change a great deal of what we were used to.

The registration with 10 fingerprints was to eliminate multiple registrations of which almost 800,000 were found and some of the culprits are being prosecuted.

INEC usually employed public service staff who could be co-opted into electoral malpractice locally, this time it was the National Youth Service Corps called to service of their nation with the knowledge that they have no local affiliations to be easily employed in delivering crooked elections.

The tendering process for equipment and materials that many of the INEC staff might have thought would be a source to corrupt enrichment was quite transparent and somewhat put out of their reach that a good few INEC bigwigs would have been miffed.

In another quest for credible elections, as one news story suggests Professor Jega was planning to have eminent Nigerians announce the results; this would have eliminated the possibility of Regional Electoral Commissioners being able to cook up figures that get announced and set off a whole series of litigations and electoral malpractice tribunals to deal with discrepancies between results on the ground and those announced.

Such eminent Nigerians would probably have asked to see the complete paper trail and chain of custody through to the tallying and collation process before putting their names to such an activity.

Give this man a chance

I believe Professor Jega was doing the best with the cards he was dealt and I would not be surprised if false assurances he got from his reports about capability and readiness were done to thwart the process, embarrass him and probably bring him to heel so that he gets with the system or he is compelled in exasperation to resign.

In my view, Professor Jega should not resign but with the resolution that he has given to tackle this issue of elections do everything he needs to do deliver credible elections with the support of every well-meaning Nigerian.

In two Twitter messages yesterday from the @INECNigeria account after the announcement to postpone the elections again, another announcement was made summoning all INEC seniors to the headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday.

INEC has summoned all state RECs, Directors of ICT, and Directors of Operations to the INEC Headquarters. This summons is for a review of logistics and lapses that accounted for the postponement of the elections. This meeting is on Tuesday.

Maybe heads would roll

Summons are a much stronger word than invites, I doubt Professor Jega is planning for a love-in, rather, some people would get a stern telling-off with the risk of being exposed as one of those whose activities are inimical to the progress of Nigeria.

One would hope that heads would roll because certain RECs have been let go of, some redeployed and even a Director of ICT was involved in some illegalities.

INEC could not in the timeframe of Professor Jega’s appointment and impeding elections have undergone a radical root and branch transformation but I trust what the chairman can do, he will do to ensure that these elections do not go sour on his watch.

I believe Professor Attahiru Jega deserves our unstinting support in taming the INEC beast that has been tasked with delivering the finery of free, fair and credible elections in Nigeria in 2011.

References

Nigeria: The resignation of Adenike Grange

» How infighting bungled elections | Vanguard (Nigeria)

THEWILL - Botched NASS Election Exposes Deep Flaws In INEC – THEWILL Investigations – A rather subjective view of things at INEC

Nigeria: Jega Joint Committee Hearing - Part II

Introducing Part II

In Part I [1] of my notes on the Joint Committee on Election Matters (JCEM) hearing with the INEC Chairman Professor Attahiru Jega, the chairman dealt with the attendant problems with the registration and the options for extending the registration period.

In Part II we address the professor’s views and answers to questions on the issues of probability, abuse of registration, failsafe mechanisms and registration amelioration procedures.

On the matter of 10 fingerprint scanning

I had in a previous blog [2] questioned the rationale behind a 10-finger registration rather than just a thumbprint. That view gained its strength of opposition from the fact that the fingerprint scanning was problematic, time-consuming and in many cases failing.

There is also the data-acquisition, data-security and data-privacy dimension to this because there is no law that quarantines this data from use by other agencies of government that might find it useful.

Many persuasive arguments can be made for sharing the fingerprint data of the adult Nigerian population beyond the primary voter identification requirement.

When you do not need the scans

The INEC Registrars were circumventing the process and overriding the 10-fingerprint scan which was only supposed to apply for special registrations of amputees, people who have lost fingers or very rare medical conditions that could affect fingerprint recognition.

#JegaSays Lazy #INECRegistration officials, overwhelmed by queues, 'suspended' 10 fingers & will be disciplined #JCEM #RSVP

On missing fingers, #JegaSays #INECRegistration team have been abusing the 10 finger override. #JCEM #RSVP

On missing fingers, #JegaSays fingers available tips. #INECRegistration team MUST make detailed notes of missing digits #JCEM #RSVP

#JegaSays Detailed guidelines for re-registration due to 10 fingers. #JCEM suggested Jega inform all via mass media #RSVP

#JegaSays ALL #INECRegistration lacking 10 fingers or detailed notes explaining absence of 10 will be voided #JCEM #RSVP

Memo on special registrations

Five days into the voters registration exercise, INEC released a memo to address the matter of registrations without some or all the fingerprints which I covered in this blog [3].

@forakin Just reading it. I'm impressed #INECRegistration published the memo. Didn't realise they had. Corresponds with #JegaSays - #JCEM date

The chairman took the opportunity at the hearing to address the matter of the 10-fingerprint requirement with statistics and probabilities.

Probabilities and statistics

#JegaSays '10 fingers' reduces chances of multiple #INECRegistration to 1 in every 5,000,000 #JCEM #RSVP

This is an interesting statistic and this drew a number of Twitter comments.

Since the estimated number of eligible voters in Nigeria is 70,000,000, there is the possibility of one set of 10 fingerprints matching the set for 14 people.

@rmajayi Which means in a sample of 70,000,000 possible voters, 14 people per 10 fingerprints can match #INECRegistration #JCEM fantastic.

@rmajayi The probability charts and calculations presaging 1/5,000,000 for #INECRegistration fingerprint match should be interesting #JCEM

The 1 in every 5,000,000 probability issue would only be identified when all the data is collated and processed by INEC computers.

Multiple registrations and detection

#JegaSays Multiple #INECRegistration is possible by using different PU. But final collation will flag ALL multiples #JCEM #RSVP

#JegaSays Some unscrupulous politicians have found out this #INECRegistration trick, but use will backfire! #JCEM #RSVP

However, there have been reports of registrations where the system indicated the new fingerprints being scanned were already in use by others.

@eshkhai LMFAO #inecregistration my fingerprints already in use by a registered voter... SMH

One wonders if the adjusted resolution of the fingerprint scanner would results in false duplicates because there are not enough distinguishing features to give the fingerprints the necessary uniqueness for differentiation.

That would present INEC with an interesting dilemma that I would not want to contemplate at this moment.

That's exactly what #JegaSays - only 14 possible multiple #INECRegistration's in 70,000,000 #JCEM

I am of the view that this is theoretical and in a practical sense there might be certain realities that INEC have not considered and might have been answered better if the chairman had been accompanied as the next tweet suggested.

So, there is one issue of the DDC machines not being able to create uniqueness between different registrants beyond the matter of the prevention of multiple registrations at the same Polling Unit.

#JegaSays Multiple registration is NOT possible on same #INECRegistration Polling Unit. #JCEM #RSVP

Handling the issues

The chairman then said INEC is equipped to deal with these issues, technically and legally.

#JCEM commended #JegaSays for upgrading from #INECRegistration software Version 1.2 to 1.8 in the first few days. #RSVP

Beyond recalibrating the fingerprint scanners, the software had to be upgraded from Version 1.2 to Version 1.8, which might indicated between testing and deployment that there serious issues that INEC had not taken on board regarding the software.

#JegaSays Each DDC's configured to 1 #INECRegistration Polling Unit. If diverted, INEC can cancel & replace. #JCEM #RSVP

This would perhaps deal with the many cases of stolen DDCs that had user data uploaded unto them but outside the supervision of INEC personnel.

#JegaSays There is no way to feed data from stolen DDCs into the final #INECRegistration register. #JCEM #RSVP

If such DDC machines have been flagged as suspect that might be the case but what of those who were registered before the machines disappeared?

One representative at the #JCEM said Jega should have brought the #INECRegistration IT guru to the grilling. That would've been fun!

It would have been interesting indeed.

In any event, there are provisions to deal with electoral crimes once that offenders are caught.

#JegaSays INEC has capacity to investigate & prosecute multiple & underage #INECRegistration & other crimes #JCEM #RSVP

Poor logistics

The chairman then addressed the matter of furniture for Polling Units, this is strange since one would think schools were closed to allow for the premises to be used for the registration exercise.

#JCEM asked #JegaSays why #INECRegistration centres lacked chairs for those waiting, despite FG budget provision #RSVP

#JegaSays Money for #INECRegistration chairs disbursed to states. Suggested logistics to blame for no chairs #JCEM #RSVP

Indeed, the logistical framework of INEC is an appalling disaster, unplanned, unprepared, unready, unsure and full of hubris.

#JCEM scolded #JegaSays for not carrying out a 'mock' #INECRegistration to test the process. #RSVP :: Word!

This is a critical project management oversight, they basically tested the systems in the field and used firefighting methods to arrest the farcical developments that led to the JCEM requiring an urgent visit from the INEC chairman – the whole project seemed to be failing and it might only be redeemed because the voters registration exercise has been extended for a week.

#JCEM also criticised the lacklustre attitude of #JegaSays' permanent and ad hoc #INECRegistration staff #RSVP

The timetable was tight, the deadlines were almost unrealistic and the time constraints made for shoddy arrangements and staff literally learning on the job and not very motivated in what they were doing.

Re-registration tips

The following are tips the chairman gave with regards to re-registering.

#INECRegistration re-reg tip 1/9. #JegaSays: If 10 fingers were NOT scanned, you MUST re-register! #JCEM #RSVP #Nigeria

#INECRegistration re-reg tip 2/9. #JegaSays: Return to the SAME Polling Unit with old voter’s card #JCEM #RSVP #Nigeria

#INECRegistration re-reg tip 3/9. #JegaSays: Give card to officer, who will CUT it but not discard #JCEM #RSVP #Nigeria

#INECRegistration re-reg tip 4/9. #JegaSays: Recapture ALL personal data #JCEM #RSVP #Nigeria

#INECRegistration re-reg tip 5/9. #JegaSays: Officer to locate & CANCEL original entry in docket #JCEM #RSVP #Nigeria

#INECRegistration re-reg tip 6/9. #JegaSays: Officer MUST write reason as 'NON CAPTURE OF FINGERS’ #JCEM #RSVP #Nigeria

#INECRegistration re-reg tip 7/9. #JegaSays: Officer MUST make fresh entry in registration docket #JCEM #RSVP #Nigeria

#INECRegistration re-reg tip 8/9. #JegaSays: Failure to do 1-8 will result in voiding of both regs #JCEM #RSVP #Nigeria

#INECRegistration re-reg tip 9/9. Challenge any officer who refuses to follow #JegaSays guidelines #JCEM #RSVP #Nigeria

These notes were created from Twitter conversations given by @RMAjayi who in turn took notes from watching the proceedings and hearing.

@forakin I hope I can get my hands on the Jega-#JCEM NTA news video. I wish #INECRegistration had a YouTube channel. #RSVP

Many thanks to @RMAjayi for the tweets, I hope these are as representative as possible of the hearings.

Sources

[1] Akin Akintayo: Nigeria: Jega Joint Committee Hearing - Part I

[2] Akin Akintayo: Nigeria: INEC - One finger is enough 10 fingers is insanity

[3] Akin Akintayo: Nigeria: INEC Memo to Correct Prior Registration without Fingerprints

Nigeria: Jega Joint Committee Hearing - Part I

Take off to a grounding

I would like to believe that every little helps towards ensuring that the elections to take place in Nigerian in April 2011 are free, fair, beyond reproach and at the point of declaration of the results all contestants would find themselves content with the conduct and the dispatch of the electioneering process.

Since the 15^th of January, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been conducting a voters’ registration exercise planned to last 15 days until Saturday the 29^th of January 2011.

This process has been fraught with problems and issues that the INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega was invited for a hearing by the Joint Committee for Election Monitoring (JCEM) of the Nigerian National Assembly to answer a whole range of questions concerning the conduct and the pace of the exercise.

Stenography meets Twitter

This hearing was broadcast on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and copious notes were taken by my good Twitter friend RMAjayi and relayed to me in a number of Twitter messages that were logged for well over an hour. We hope that eventually we would get a recording of that hearing to share here with you so that you can review the conversations yourself.

Meanwhile, this blog will combine the Twitter messages with comments and analysis that I will provide and hopefully will be annotated and commented on by RMAjayi to maintain the context, import and setting of that hearing.

RMAjayi has smartly given the core elements of that hearing the Twitter #JCEM hashtag, it includes quotes or paraphrased commends of Professor Jega as the Twitter #JegaSays hashtag and a majority of this falls under the more general Twitter #INECRegistration hashtag, you can click on the links to provide you the Twitter streams related to each hashtag.

The #RSVP hashtag is the initiative of the Enough is Enough Nigeria Organisation and it is the acronym for Register – Select – Vote – Protect.

Short on the orders

At the hearing Professor Jega started with the numbers game by enumerating the number of Digital Data Capture (DDC) machines ordered, recorded in the following tweets.

#JegaSays all 80,000 Zinox (Nigeria) DDCs delivered on time for Jan 15 #INECRegistration start. #JCEM #RSVP

#JegaSays all 30,000 Haier (China) DDCs delivered on time for Jan 15 #INECRegistration start. #JCEM #RSVP

#JegaSays only 5,500 of 22,000 Avente (USA) DDCs delivered on time for Jan 15 #INECRegistration start. #JCEM #RSVP

#JegaSays By Jan 15, #INECRegistration had 115,500 (80+30+5.5)K DDC machines for 119,973 PUs across #Nigeria#JCEM #RSVP

This indicates that DDCs which are essentially laptops were ordered from Nigerian, Chinese and American companies with the American company only fulfilling 25% of its allocation when the registration started and that meant 4,473 Polling Units (PUs) could not start registration at the commencement date.

By #JegaSays calculations, there are 12,027 surplus #INECRegistration DDC machines. #JCEM #RSVP. What'll happen to them?

In fact, there would be 13,037 surplus systems whose function has not yet been clearly defined.

#JegaSays US-based Avente Tech will face penalty for failure to deliver #INECRegistration DDCs in time. #JCEM #RSVP

Obviously, if that is written into the contract and the small print does not exculpate the company, there might be a case for claim compensation, however, there is no doubt that the schedules were tight and no one company could fulfil the complete order.

Fast and Cheap is usually not Good

After the DDCs were acquired they had to be installed and configured, the costs were kept low by using Open Source software which included a distribution of Linux and a custom built database to warehouse the captured data.

#JegaSays #INECRegistration software was designed in-house & there was "no need to pay for it''. What exactly did Nigeria pay for?

@DoubleEph @forakin #JegaSays the DDCs were built to #INECRegistration specs. I don't think we can blame the suppliers. #JCEM

We can only hope that the database is robust enough to handle that data which would include the comparison of fingerprint data.

One interesting oversight has been noticed in the database where in the Profession/Occupation field “Journalist” is missing which for Nigeria is an error bordering on sacrilege.

The gender selection section on the user interface should have been a radio button allowing an either/or selection of gender but it was a drop-down box leaving some registrants registered as transsexuals.

The ghosts of censuses past

#JegaSays Shortfall of #INECRegistration DDCs was shared across #Nigeria in carefully considered percentages #JCEM #RSVP

The only reference data they would have had to compute these “carefully considered percentages” would have been the 2006 Census that left many unhappy that we had not properly counted ourselves, a topic I wrote about in one of my blogs – Gauging the 2006 Census.

The granting of a long holiday without restrictions in mobility especially in the South allowed for the numbers to skewed in favour of villages of typical town dwellers who took the opportunity to travel home.

And it explains why - #JegaSays Lagos was hit hardest by insufficient #INECRegistration DDCs, due to its population size. #JCEM #RSVP

Fingerprints were the linchpin of success

As far as the Professor was concerned - #JegaSays standard of #INECRegistration DDCs is world-class. No issues with equipment, only fingerprints #JCEM #RSVP

But if fingerprint scanning was critical to ensuring a registration was complete and successful, it has become part of the critical path and hence to the layman the system was faulty because the product did not meet the standard required for valid Voter’s Registration Cards, the minutiae was superfluous to the expected goal though necessary for effective troubleshooting.

#JegaSays #INECRegistration fingerprint scanners were set to the highest sensitivity possible, higher than necessary #JCEM #RSVP

#JegaSays #INECRegistration fingerprint sensitivity was set to 50-point miniature as used in forensics; slowing down scans #JCEM #RSVP

This shows that demonstrations might have been given to show the full capability of the systems but someone should have reviewed the capabilities (forensics) against the needs (identification) and that gap analysis would have allowed to the necessary trade-offs to be made mitigating the localised issues we later encountered which crudely suggest Sub-Saharan fingerprint whorls might not be readable at certain resolutions.

The difficulties encountered led to interesting improvisations from the washing of hands, through cleaning the fingers with methylated spirit which could damage the plastic components of the scanner to the illogical passing of fingers through sand.

Recalibrate and upgrade

#JegaSays #INECRegistration DDCs were reset, reducing scan quality but still adequate to combat multiple registration #JCEM#RSVP

The systems were then recalibrated and suddenly the fingerprint scanner process became easier with many registrations being completed within 10 minutes maximum.

#JCEM commended #JegaSays for upgrading from #INECRegistration software Version 1.2 to 1.8 in the first few days. #RSVP

Sneeze in this one

It appears a napkin calculation was made on the following assumptions.

An estimate of 70 million eligible voters to register at 119,973 Polling Units would mean 584 an average of registrants per DDC machine and if each registrant completed registration in 10 minutes in an efficient Polling Unit we can assume the DDC would perform for 6,000 minutes or 60 hours.

This spread over 15 days would be 4 hours of work effective work a day and since polling units would be open for 8 hours a day, most of the registrations would have been done within the first week.

The reality with all the issues that have arisen has had INEC asking for an additional week of registrations to cost NGN 6.6 billion.

To suggest this has been a Project Management debacle bordering on a farce is to compliment the exercise with sarcasm to laughable for the ears; the whole event might well be redeemed, since some really though the whole project would never take off.

#JegaSays Many international agencies have sent congratulations on #INECRegistration, as they expected it to fail! #JCEM #RSVP

Revert to the Guttenberg Press

There have been serious printing issues, first to do with insufficient power from the batteries to run the laptop and the printer, though it appears no questions and answers transpired on the power issue.

The printer ordered - RT @rmajayi: #INECRegistration printer is a HP Deskjet 1000 http://j.mp/gCZAc7 #RSVP #JCEM

#JegaSays #INECRegistration printers can produce 450-500 cards per cartridge but @bubusn says about 110. #JCEM #RSVP

How the professor could be so way off the mark that the ink cartridges were only able to print 22% of their estimated capacity is amazing that you had to give it to him when he came up with this reason for the low performance of the ink cartridges.

On insufficient ink, #JegaSays Due to outdoor #INECRegistration, the heat of the sun caused ink IN printers to cake. #JCEM #RSVP

Genius, which led me to say - @rmajayi Ah! The function of an expert is not to get things right but wrong for more sophisticated reasons. #INECRegistration #JegaSays

Obviously, it would be absurd to suggest that this was a tropically-induced malfunction, but it would be uncouth to shout down the gravitas of a professor.

The other parts of the hearing will be completed in another blog as Part II, this covers the issues of probability, abuse of registration, failsafe mechanisms and registration amelioration procedures.

Nigeria: INEC Chairman Jega on BBC Africa Have Your Say

The INEC chairman airs his views

The chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Professor Attahiru Jega was on the BBC Africa Have Your Say programme [1] on January 18, 2011 at 16:00 GMT to answer questions posed to him about the current electoral process which centres around the voter registration and other related issues.

He fielded a number of questions and answered to some satisfaction the critical matters affecting the registration process.

Quality kit deployed

He made it clear that the equipment was of the highest standard and not deficient in any way, he challenged us to review the tenders [2] of the equipment on the INEC website.

On the matter of power, he suggested all the kit were provided with two 10-hour capacity batteries that could be fully charged overnight at the area centres and this should not have been an issue today though in the previous days it is possible that these batteries were not fully charged before deployment.

The area centres are equipped with generators thereby fully addressing the power issues we are so well aware of in Nigeria.

All fingers or bust

My question on the legal status was first jumbled up with a whole range of statements that he cherry-picked his way with unrelated answers but another direct question about it nailed the issue.

On the matter of the fingerprint scanners, their default factory settings were calibrated for too high a sensitivity that patches have been sent out to all the 120,000 polling units to fix the problem.

He was categorical about the fingerprint issue stating Voter’s Registration cards issued without the fingerprint scans were grossly deficient.

He buttressed that point by saying “No Nigerian should allow themselves to be registered without the fingerprint capture.” In other words, that registration is both null and void and the registrant should return to the polling centre to be properly registered.

He did not give any ground on the matter of numbers of fingers, all 10 need to be in the system and since the fingerprint scanning process is working better, and it should not more be an issue.

He did say that all polling units should have facilities for washing hands and advised strongly against using methylated spirit to clean the surface of the scanning device.

No party but secure

Other matters he addressed were the fact that he is politically impartial and not a card carrying member of any party, he vouch for the professionalism of the state electoral commissioners over whatever partisan affiliation they might have.

There are security conferences and meetings taking place to ensure that electoral process is free of interference and those who attempt to subvert the process would be subjected to the full force of the law. In his words, impunity is a thing of the past.

He’ll be back

I cannot say after the exchanges I was fully convinced that that whole exercise would be successful, but the particular issues we were concerned about were addressed without equivocation and it is now left to Nigerians to go out and be registered, the whole system is beginning to work as it should.

There was no opportunity to address that matter of the denigration of the members of the youth corps who by all means deserver both an apology and encouragement from the chairman but I believe that would happen.

He has offered to return before the main elections in April for another conversation tuned to answering questions that hopefully will increase our confidence in the possibility of free and fair National elections in Nigeria in April 2011.

Many questions were posed on the hashtag #ASKINEC a commentary on the interview was on the hashtag #INECRegistration, the program was monitored on Twiitter with @BBCAfricaHYS and their Facebook group BBC Africa Have Your Say.

Sources

[1] BBC - Africa Have Your Say: What do you want to ask Nigeria's INEC chairman?

[2] News > INEC News >INEC signs contracts for DDC machines