Men's things - X

Registers of choice and fate

Registers are interesting repositories of information indicating where you might belong, in a class, with a group, by choice or automatically. Your curiosity about registers is to determine what is stored about you and could correct incorrect or changed information.

It starts with birth registrations that include your full name, the names and occupations of your parents, when and where you were born, and the day the entry was placed in the register.

With life, you will probably have to register a birth, a marriage, and a death, the first and last is usually done by someone else. In school, you might end up on a register with a roll call to determine who is present or absent. As an adult where any semblance of a democracy exists, we might say a voters’ register.

Another register that matters to me is predicated on religious faith; being in the Lamb’s Book of Life having accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and Saviour. “Nothing evil will be allowed to enter, nor anyone who practices shameful idolatry and dishonesty—but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” (NLT) [BibleHub: Revelation 21:27]

Not this register at any time

In my meeting last week, it was said in passing and I heard the nurse right; it was one register to which I would never have wanted my name appended, and my utmost desire is to be taken off that register with the testimony of an all-clear having had a prior proof of a diagnosis.

Yes, there is a National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service and with a cancer diagnosis, the person is automatically registered, to track how cancer is managed nationally. You can seek with apparent difficulty to have your information removed by opting out. [CRUK: What is cancer registration?]

While I would rather not answer present if my name is called out of this register, I appreciate that when it comes to cancer treatment, the book of knowledge that is brought to bear on any new diagnosis comes from the long trail of studies, treatments, observations, and the lives of those who succumbed to the disease and the many who survived too.

Registered for better outcomes

That is why when in a consulting room, I welcome students to participate in the conversation. I engage them fully and try to paint a picture of how some of the wonders of progressive developments in medicine, have helped deal with disease that once was a life sentence but is manageable for some, curable for others, or controllable for many.

Sometimes, the prospects and options for dealing with men’s things when biopsies return positive results can be daunting. My decision is not to dwell on this but to encourage myself with messages about healing, living, wellness, and strength.

What I do with the knowledge of a cancer diagnosis is everything, and what I intend to have, is a better story than what any prognosis suggests. The first step to this is checking on your men’s things, going for the requisite tests, attending all appointments to discuss any issues and giving yourself the early fighting chance of knowing you have the choice of a possible cure.

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Nigeria: ReVoDa - Making Your Votes Count

Politicians barred from election monitoring

It appears that on Election Day political office holders as was customarily the case will not be able to travel round their constituencies as unauthorised election monitors [1], thereby exerting undue influence on the electoral process.

Many times we have seen these political office holders with their entourages and coterie of the sycophantic mob arrive at voting centres, disrupt the process and at times commandeer the ballot box and get all registrations put in their docket or cart away the ballot box to be stuffed with votes to give them office.

This time, the situation is different and according to the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Oyo State, Mr. Ayo Adakeja, none of the following people can act as party agents during the electoral process - local government chairmen, members of a local government, commissioners in a state, deputy governor, or governor of a state, minister or any other person holding political office under any tier of government.

Besides this, there are vehicular movement restrictions that apply to everyone on election days, this however becomes concerning if people have registered at polling units distant from their locations of residence or those who have registered in their home villages far away from their locations of residence that they cannot make the journey in time to get to vote on election day.

Banking on their impartiality

However, the issue of monitoring of the elections in April 2011 has in essence become a civic responsibility, everyone has to get involved, the employment of members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) [2] rather than civil servants and teacher who were previously pressganged into service, hopes to use the lack of local allegiance of the NYSC members to offer a façade of impartiality on the part of the agents of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) [3].

NYSC members are usually posted to locations other than their state of origin, a huge responsibility for the future of Nigeria is being placed on their shoulders to ensure that the voting process is transparent, free, fair, unhindered by any vested interests.

Making your votes count through reporting

The civic responsibility part comes with the launching of the ReVoDa [4] application produced by the EiE Nigeria's RSVP campaign [5] which allows for every voter who has a mobile phone to report the state of things at their polling unit.

For the first time, fully corroborated reports of activities at Polling Units can be collated to a central location which would include the Polling Unit Number and the name of the reporter of the event or activity and this should be admissible as part of evidence if electoral disputes should arise.

More importantly, it would hopefully serve as a deterrent to criminal activity since immediate citizen reporting can be done and probably would allow a prompt arresting of the situation before it becomes serious electoral malpractice.

RSVP voting without regrets

Having Registered, we are now going through the process of assessment and Selection of those vying for political office; do not commit or give allegiance until you have heard all sides and had your questions properly answered.

In April, you have the opportunity to Vote for your selections and then you need to take the next step of Protecting your vote to ensure that the popular democratic will of your community, locality, state and country is counted as the ballots indicate.

Download and Use ReVoDa

Avail yourselves of the opportunity of downloading ReVoDa [6] well before the electoral season, visit the site regularly for updates and information about how you too can be involved in ensuring your vote is protected all the way to when the results are announced.

ReVoDa appears very user-friendly with lots of drop-down menus to allow you make your reports of the Election Type, INEC Official, Materials Available, Voting & Accreditation, Votes Collation & Count, Result Announcement, Violence, Fraud and the tally of votes per party.

The democratic process in April 2011 is now squarely in the hands of the people and it is up to us to make it work, however, it can only work if every participates in the debates and discussions, in the voting, in the monitoring and in the reporting truthfully of all activities around the electoral process.

Make Your Vote Count and use all the tools you have to ensure they do count.

Sources

[1] » INEC bars govs, deputies, others from monitoring elections - Vanguard (Nigeria)

[2] National Youth Service Corp

[3] INEC Nigeria

[4] ReVoDa | How it works

[5] Good governance and Public accountability: EnoughisEnough Nigeria (EiE)

[6] Enough is Enough (EiE) Nigeria : ReVoDa – How to download the application

Nigeria: INEC Voter Registration Review VI

Still a logistical nightmare

This wraps up the long overdue final review of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) voter registration exercise.

For three weeks in most places people assembled to register in participate in the elections scheduled for April 2011, in the last few days, those who had left it late having been poorly served by the faltering technology of the Digital Data Capture (DDC) computer machines, poor logistics and scanty material suddenly had the reprieve of another 2 day extension in 13 states of the federation.

Many will still be disenfranchised because up till the very last day, INEC was still hiring volunteers to man the registration process and that still did not get all the prospective registrants through, in the end out of the proposed 70 million eligible voters projected an estimated 64 million were captured by all these discrete systems.

Defensive opinions and offensive facts

The Chief Press Secretary of the INEC Chairman attempted what he called a “Contextual Review”[1] of the registration exercise and given that it was a humongous logistical exercise fraught with all sorts of issues that many activist highlight and in ways helped alleviate, his assessment was hardly the kind of independent and objective review one would have expected as the context seemed to rail against the cynics, sceptics and the concerned who picked out the flaws in the whole exercise.

The review was as defensive as anyone could get about what a participant might have involved themselves in whilst pretending to great success that many observers would have qualified closer to a barely passed grade but he is entitled to his opinion but not to his own facts.

Voters’ List review

The week beginning the 14^th of February 2011 saw the 5-day review of the voters’ list where corrections, objections and collections were the themes according to INEC guidelines [2].

Despite the biometric acquisition of the data, none of it appeared online and many polling unit centres did not get to display the said lists and very few did get to see any list according to news reports [3] and such displays [Picture of a list displayed a at Polling Unit in Lagos State] did not engender confidence.

What was more alarming about where people found the lists displayed was exemplified in the following Tweets.

StanVito Now this is strange. The #INECRegistration list displayed in in my estate can't be real. My name isn't on the list? Some1 got 2 b shitting me

StanVito This #INECRegistration Voter list shows only those registered in Feb. No one registered in Jan is on this list.

This highlights a number of issues, if the lists displayed are those for their respective Polling Units, where they are if the said lists do have all that registered or those whose registration was considered valid that includes the 10-fingerprint scan and if corrections were made for situations where data might have been lost and no remediation made for lost registrations.

Concerns about lists

One can only wonder about those who had not bothered to take the verification exercise seriously and check that their names were on the lists and that their data was correct before checking for other kinds of errors considering INEC had stated it would not extend [4] the list verification exercise whilst we take into account that this was a working week, apart from the religious holiday on the Tuesday.

Meanwhile, INEC also released the list of candidates for political office to the public but that exercise was hardly decisive [5] with the INEC constantly reviewing its opinions about eligibility and the incessant haranguing from the courts that the risk of the electorate having choices out of a bad lot because of a botched eligibility process presaged a rotten representative democracy.

INEC intends to have compiled a usable voters’ register [6] by the 2^nd of March 2011 having eliminated duplicate registrations and other irregularities borne from flawed registrations through to criminality that included the impounding of a DDC machine in the home of member of the House of Representatives long after the registration exercise had ended.

An exorbitant democracy

The cost of this exercise [7] is estimated at $580 million with a unit cost of almost $9 per voter and this does not guarantee a free and fair election, in fact, it does not guarantee a credible voters’ register and INEC is already suggesting that it does not have sufficient funds [8] to conduct the elections.

In the midst of this apparent squander for democracy is the positive news relayed in a video news report [9] by the Al Jazeera English network about an ex-Google executive who single-handed coded the software used for the registration exercise with the use of volunteers.

What Nigeria has tried to do is squeeze into three months what normally takes a year and at one time had Nigeria’s short-term demand for DDC equipment exceed the global supply (PDF file) [10].

Our revolution

The first hurdle of the Register | Select | Vote | Protect process [11] has barely been sterling however one would hope that those who did register would not find to their shock in April that they cannot vote.

However, Nigerians need to begin assessing the people who seek to represent them and make informed decisions about who they will be voting for whilst keeping others around them enthusiastic about the revolution that is before us, the opportunity to have free and fair elections in April 2011 with the promise of good government.

Sources

[1] Voter Registration: A Contextual Review by Kayode Idowu

[2] INEC Releases Guidelines for Display of Preliminary Register of Voters

[3] Voter verification lists hard to find in Nigeria - Yahoo! News

[4] » Voter verification: INEC says no extension of deadline - Vanguard (Nigeria)

[5] INEC, courts make ‘fast’ money from candidates’ list

[6] » Voters’ register ready March 2- Jega - Vanguard (Nigeria)

[7] Nigeria's elections: A list a mile long | The Economist

[8] » INEC budget: N45bn not enough – Jega - Vanguard (Nigeria)

[9] YouTube - Millions register for Nigeria vote

[10] INEC Account of Acquisition Process

[11] Good governance and Public accountability : Enough is Enough Nigeria (EiE)

Nigeria: The Revolution has already begun

The cry for revolution is shrill

I have suffered to my hurt and discomfort the many cries for revolution in Nigeria. Everyone seems to have an opinion about change for Nigeria; be it splitting up the country to sending the current crop of leaders to an early grave in order to clear the air for new growth.

Once again, it can be so easy to list all the problems with Nigeria, the great potential squandered by the selfish interests of those who on assumption of power are too intoxicated to walk straight, think right and act determined for the progress of the country.

The spirit of profligacy and kleptomania possesses the leaders to the point that rampant acquisition beyond needs leaves their bank accounts heavier than the treasury of the country – we have been sorely lead and badly served, indeed, something needs to give.

We are NOT like the others

There are some that wish for the clear-out that Jerry Rawlings offered Ghana with the execution of three of his predecessors, it did appear to purge Ghana of some of the poison and rottenness that was engulfing it, but Nigeria does not have a Jerry Rawlings.

The nearest example to that might have been Mohammadu Buhari in the early 80’s but in his zest to improve the country, it was slowly being turned into an Islamic police state, it prepared the way for even worse leadership that has held Nigeria hamstrung since.

One could say that the worst times in Nigeria were during the time of the military despot, Sani Abacha who by the grace of God expired in a sexual orgy which presaged the preparation of democratic rule just a year after in 1999.

Our ruler-ship is not homogenous

However, it is left for one to wonder about the ends of a revolution in Nigeria, we have not been under the cosh of or autocratic regimes like the Arabic states of North Africa where leaders have been in charge forever, chief amongst whom is Muammar al-Gadhafi of Libya. Nor have we suffered the false democracies of Uganda or Zimbabwe there has been a musical chairs of the ruling elite in Nigeria.

In some cases, they all seem to be of the same ilk, it is not like Nigeria has some popular leader of opposition in exile waiting to take the mantle of leadership when the revolution has toppled those in power.

The revolution talk is fraught with serious problems because the leadership clique is not homogenous, it is composed of competing interests regional, religious, political, economic and social.

None seem to have the wherewithal to coalesce for a common good because of egotistical megalomaniacs who only understand compromise and consensus in terms of the former being their lead and the latter being their view, none of which is negotiable.

After revolution comes anarchy

In other words, there might well be a revolution but no leader to reap the fruits of the revolution; we might well end up in anarchy with a rapidly deteriorating state of affairs as these competing interests jostle for position, opportunity, power and the do-or-die grab for the spoils.

We do need reform and change; we need a common goal for the good of Nigeria, preserving the entity and the identity that makes us proud Nigerians.

However, the good people have not stepped forward and for good reason many who might cannot bear the snake-pit of politics to sully their good intentions, plan and possibly progressive policies for Nigeria.

We are not suited for the usual revolutions

Nigeria is by no means ripe for a revolution, there are no components in place to make it the success we desire with blind optimism, we can do well to educate ourselves, participate fully in the democratic process we have, deign to hold the elected accountable and become better and coherent activists that demand positive action or expect the said leaders to resign in disgrace.

We are plagued with leaders of old who have refused to retire, whilst one cannot pray – death come swiftly and take them away, until we rise to assumed greater responsibility we would be belittled and patronised by those who through arrogance and hubris think they are the best gifts to Nigeria when they are in fact the worst things to be inflicted on our long-suffering people.

Your revolution is in RSVP

Pray, if you might, fast, if you will, but until we all take up the mantle of civic responsibility by registering to vote; selecting those we can trust and hold accountable; vote for those who have not tried to usurp the system, whose character is beyond reproach and competence is verifiably vouched for and stood to protect the voice of our collected efforts of choosing our leaders our revolution would be too far away in the future to grasp and too high an aspiration to attain.

Register | Select | Vote | Protect [1] without regrets your revolution by participating in democratic change for great change and accountability – the protection part does not end when the results are declared, it continues for the duration of the term of that elected representative and any other connected interest that should be working for the good and progress of the country.

Nigeria’s revolution is not in the template of marching the streets with civil disorder to upset the as it were status quo, our Green Revolution is in making the best of what we have now, take the democratic bull by the horns and not relenting until the will of the people is fully expressed and accepted in free, fair, credible and viable elections.

Our revolution has started already, are you in the move to change your country for the good?

Source

[1] EiE NIGERIA: Register | Select | Vote | Protect

Nigeria: INEC Memo to Correct Prior Registration without Fingerprints

Provision of Special Registration Circumvention

The 10-fingerprint scan requirement for valid voter registration cards can be waived for those with special circumstances the narrow definition of which would pertain to amputees and those who might have lost fingers and or thumbs leaving them with the inability to provide 10-unique fingerprints from the same person.

Protocols exist to register such persons and there should be accompanying paperwork to describe and explain why the 10-fingerprints could not be captured else that registration is considered grossly deficient and hence void.

Under no circumstances should the fingerprint scanning process be abridged, ignored or circumvented for those who evidently have 10-fingers except in particularly rare circumstances where the whorls are indistinguishable by the system as a result of medically proven ailments like diabetes or high-blood pressure and manually oppressed hands as a result of heavy labour like farming – but that are quite exceptional cases.

Memo for correcting prior registration without fingerprints

On the 20^th of January, 2011, INEC released a document entitled Abuse of Special Registration [1] downloadable as a PDF file clearly giving directions as to how to manage the reregistration of those whose original registrations had been voided by the absence of the 10-fingerprint scan.

**** Critical Validation Check ****

You can identify of your Voter’s Registration card is valid by checking that the 5 tiny square boxes aligned vertically on either side of your photograph are all coloured in black for the L (left hand) and the R (right hand).

If any of these boxes are not shaded, your registration is void and you have to return to your original Polling Unit to ameliorate the situation.

Guidelines for re-registration

The guidelines are as follows;

1. The Assistant Registration Officer (ARO) will check the original voter’s card to ensure that the person is at the right Polling Unit.
2. Upon confirming that, the ARO will re-register the registrants on the same DDC machine capturing all fingerprints and issue a new Voter’s Registration Card.
3. The original Voter’s Registration Card will then be destroyed by cutting it through with a pair of scissors.
4. The ARO should locate the previous registration on FORM EC1A and cancel it with initials indicating the invalidated status.
5. The registrant’s details are then recorded as a new entry on FORM EC1A.
6. At the end of the registration period, FORM EC1A and the invalidated Voter’s Registration Cards must be returned to the LGA/State Office.

Reference

[1] INEC Memo Concerning the Abuse of Special Registration

Nigeria: Seeing RSVP at the PDP Primaries

The convention

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) the ruling party in Nigeria conducted their presidential primaries from yesterday through to the very early hours of this morning and it must be lauded as an historic occasion and probably a seminal event.

After all the politicking, horse-trading and whatever else our cynicism can conjure up they gathered at the great Eagle Square in Abuja, hours late but determined to ensure the business of the day was started and completed.

There were three candidates, a lady, Dr. Sarah Jubril; the former vice-president Atiku Abubakar and the sitting president Goodluck Jonathan – the stage was set for a microcosm of what one hopes would be the play out of the national elections in April 2010.

Each contestant had the opportunity to appeal, persuade or cajole their constituencies and then each delegate was given the opportunity to vote.

Protecting the vote

With 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory as constituencies, each had their accredited delegates cast their ballots secretly in ballot boxes assigned to their respective states, after this was done, initially the first 4 states were counted in alphabetical order then randomly.

The count was public, visible and audible, the boxes were for each state were brought to the enumerator’s table, the returning officer asked to certified the accredited delegates and the voting delegates and then each ballot which had handwritten names of the candidates was inspected, called out and separated into piles for each announced candidate after which the ballots were counted and tabulated.

When the last ballot was counted, all the counts were collated and the results announced; from the staging of this historic event, there was very little to dispute apart from the need to ease of voting by using tick boxes and not the writing of names which included one ballot in Arabic script and probably some speed at the job by introducing some technology.

However, this was not to take away from the occasion, it could be termed as the freest and fairest political voting activity ever done on Nigerian soil, it was transparent, open, visible and viewed globally, we all participated either physical there through the news correspondents and via social networking forums as Twitter and Facebook.

RSVP with no regrets

In the same vein, Nigerians are working to create the same quality of suffrage accompanied with free and fair elections exemplified in the Enough is Enough initiative [1] with the acronym RSVP.

This ground-breaking initiative has the ultimate goal of accountable democracy in Nigeria borne of the true will of the people being represented at local government, state and federal levels – it requires at all Nigerians participate in moving from apathy to engagement, involvement and civic responsibility – it is aspirational and should be within our grasp.

The goal is simple.

Register – Ensure you are registered where you should be and validated as a true member of the electorate.

Select – Inform yourself about the candidates vying for your votes, check their policies, their views, their goals, their motives and if given the opportunity ask the hard questions and do not fobbed off with soft answers. Most importantly, you are not for sale or to be used as bargaining chips for ulterior ends.

Vote – Go out and have a say in the selecting the people who will well represent you at all levels of government, exercise the right to seek accountability.

Protect – this is where it all begins to make sense, ensuring your voice is heard, your vote is counted and not stolen by criminal elements ready to subvert the democratic process for their rotten machinations – this is where Nigerian democracy needs to attain the label of free, fair and beyond dispute. Only we Nigerians can achieve this and enforce this, observers can only observe; Nigerians can ensure that the rules, the letter and the spirit of the elections are observed.

What we saw

Now the RSVP arrangement that the PDP Presidential primaries adopted seems to have been read RSVP backwards, there is the pre-electioneering phase of reading RSVP forwards and the post-electioneering phase of reading it backwards.

In conducting a public, visible and audible count of the votes, they Protected to the full, the will expressed by the delegates, there was no dispute about the votes cast, the numbers tallied and the ones voided, any challenge to that spectacle would have been foolhardy at best.

The secret ballots with the writing of the names of the candidates on the ballot papers meant that the delegates had to know why they were in the voting booths and had to identify clearly which ballot box their vote had to go into. The matter of whether it was a vote of conscience, conviction or compulsion is beside the point, there was no coercion at point of the exercise of their franchise, they Voted freely.

What we need

The horse-trading that went into the Selection process can be open to dispute but one thing was evident, despite Atiku Abubakar putting himself forward as the consensus candidate of the North, he lost his home state 71% to his opponent, as far as the results went on to show, Goodluck Jonathan was the consensus candidate for whatever division of Nigeria you are inclined to entertain, but as far as the national delegates of ruling party were concerned, Goodluck Jonathan commanded broad and widespread national support in the entity that is one Nigeria.

The Registration process of the delegates was fraught with powerplays and influence, that cannot be avoided, but Nigerians can prevent that situation when they go to register from tomorrow the 15^th of January 2011 to the 29^th of January 2011 – they should ensure they are informed of what is needed to register, ensure all the unique identifying characteristics that represent them are properly recorded and on review of the register, they should ensure their names are as they should be.

For Nigerians, it starts with registration and may this be the dawning of a new accountable democracy in this great country of ours.

God bless Nigeria!

Sources

[1] EiE NIGERIA: Register | Select | Vote | Protect