Nigeria: How much do we pay our lawmakers? - Part II

Back on the streets

The Nigerian youth marched out to our legislative houses all around the country on Thursday the 26^th of September 2013.

On Twitter, they mustered and gathered organised under the Twitter hashtag of #OurNASS where Nigerians demanded accountability, transparency and better representation. [Al Jazeera]

The occupation of elected political office had long shifted from the call to service to what was self-serving interests exemplified by outrageous remunerations that make the eyes water.

A salary to feast on

It is the long held belief that our democracy is both profligate and extravagant, it is safe to assume that the cost is unsustainable.

However, when the people congregated at the National Assembly in Abuja, some senators braved the crowds and came out to chat with the people where for the very first time a senator presented his payslip detailing the salary for one month paid in January 2010, in the previous electoral cycle as tabulated below:

Without considering inflationary changes and reassessments up to 2013, this alone presents an interesting reading on the percentages scale.

Multiples beyond belief

A senator will take 735% in allowances beyond his basic salary monthly with 200% going to housing and 250% going to managing a constituency office.

If the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) deductions total more than the basic salary, you then wonder if the allowances are taxed too.

Besides this, the vehicle loan is 400% of annual basic salary, but if a term is 4 years, how does a senator pay off that loan without seeking extra funds over and above the salary?

It would mean the legislator will would have either to meet that from the allowance pool or engage in other business activity to meet possible shortfalls, this remuneration structure is uneconomical and presents the framework for nefarious activity, possibly corruption.

Not sustainable

What does not show in this salary payslip is the furniture allowance, which is 75% of annual salary paid in a lump sum at the commencement of legislative tenure and 5% for housing allowance.

We still need to get a current figure representing what we pay our legislators but in percentage terms with reference to the basic salary, it is unlikely as I have said before that any private sector job rewards people this well, this democracy at this rate and cost is unsustainable.

Other reading

Nigeria: How much do we pay our lawmakers? - Part I

Nigeria: The relative cost of our democracy is unsustainable – AkinBlog.nl

Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) – About page.

Senator earns N12m yearly, says RMAFC – The Nation

Certain Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders Salaries and Allowances etc, (Amendment) Act of 2008

Nigeria: How much do we pay our lawmakers? - Part I

How much do we pay our lawmakers?

Getting round the inscrutability of the remuneration for Nigerian legislators has been a completely fraught exercise that none of the organisations with the function of regulating such appear to have a handle on.

However, when the Economist blew the lid off the exorbitant salary packages of the Nigerian Senators a few weeks ago as I wrote in this blog [1], the uproar that followed especially on social media meant that it was impossible to ignore and something had to be done.

A moribund commission

The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) [See their About page here[2]], is empowered to:

"Determine the remuneration appropriate to political office holders, including the President, Vice-President, Governors, Deputy Governors, Ministers, Commissioners, Special Advisers, Legislators and the holders of the offices mentioned in Section 84 and 124 of the Constitution."

They have through this news story [3] gleaned from a newspaper advertisement released some information regarding the salaries of the Nigerian legislators but we are left with many more questions than what this red meat to the dogs of dissent was supposed to sate.

A guesstimate at best

Whilst the figures published by the Economist might be in dispute, the Economist asserts that their figures are for 2013, whereas the figures released by the RMAFC are in their words, ‘has been the official remuneration package since February 2007 till date’, which makes one wonder whether the salaries and allowances of our legislators have remained the same for 6 years despite inflation, the global financial crisis and two elections – that stretches the limits of incredulity, it really does.

Now, the Commission has taken it upon itself to do the following:

“Accordingly, the Commission, therefore, considers it most appropriate and necessary to provide the actual details of present remuneration package for political, public and judicial office holders to avoid misinformation and misrepresentation of facts capable of misleading citizens and members of the international community.”

They don’t really know

And what do they have?

“According to the RMAFC, the emoluments for ministers, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Head of Service and Chairmen of Constitutional Bodies are close to those of the Senators …”

One might read that to mean they do not have the actual figures because, they reference that the “Certain Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders Salaries and Allowances etc, (Amendment) Act of 2008, states the actual amount being paid to legislators and other public officers, adding, however that “any other allowance (s) enjoyed by any political, public office holder outside those provided in the Remuneration Act of 2008 is not known to the Commission and the Chief Accounting Officer should be held accountable””, I guess that means they really do not have all the information.

That is because, the said, Certain Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders Salaries and Allowances etc, (Amendment) Act of 2008 [Viewable here as a PDF [4]] does not include the salaries of the any of the legislators, however, we have a general idea as to why seeking political and public office in Nigeria is quite a lucrative career move.

I commiserate

I can understand what Zakari Mohammed, the spokesman for the House of Representatives meant when he said, “Whatever is being written is mere exaggeration and does not reflect what is accurate. They fail to realise that what we take as salaries is different from what we use in running our offices.” Even accounting for what it takes to run an office, that would mainly be staff and other outgoings amounting to about 250% of basic salary with about 550% of basic salary in allowances to pocket. It still begs the question, what is accurate?

Then the RMAFC concludes with, “It is, therefore, wrong and misleading to add up allowances irrespective of whether they are regular, refundable or non-regular, as the regular annual emoluments of political and public office holders.”

Honestly, RMAFC, if we were to add all that into the mix, the Nigerian Senator remuneration package will come to an eye-watering 1,505% of basic salary, and the other 225% for furniture? It breaks the bank to smithereens – Nice work if you can get it, I say.

The table of the Nigerian Senator Salary Package

The table below was derived from the figures supplied by the RMAFC [3] and as far as accuracy is concerned, they are only as good as 2007.

[1] Nigeria: The relative cost of our democracy is unsustainable – AkinBlog.nl

[2] Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) – About page.

[3] Senator earns N12m yearly, says RMAFC – The Nation

[4] Certain Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders Salaries and Allowances etc, (Amendment) Act of 2008

Nigeria: The relative cost of our democracy is unsustainable

This is too dear

I have written many times about the exorbitant and probably prohibitively unsustainable cost of the democratic experiment in Nigeria and there are many reasons to be concerned for how much we pay our lawmakers on average. [Nigeria: Our Exorbitant Government]

The graph below published by the Economist is more than just an eye-opener but it is also revelatory about how political office is a parasitic drain on the national resources since politicians cannot be considered part of the economic engine of a country.

What makes this graph worthy of the most righteous indignation begging for public insurrection is not so much about what the politicians earn, but the gap in earning capacity between the citizen and the representative lawmaker.

The comparisons

Australian lawmakers earn the most at $201,200 followed by Nigeria at $189,500 and then Italy with $182,000 and the United States at $174,000 all compared to the people they represent, we find that Australian and American lawmakers earn less than 4 times the average economic activity of their countries divided by their populations (GDP per capita), Italians just about double that and Nigerian lawmakers earn 116 times that.

The World Bank, the IMF, the CIA and the University of Pennsylvania all put the GDP per capita of Nigeria at between $2,661 ranking 137^th in the world out of 180 countries, $2,720 ranking 143/187, $2,800 ranking 148/194 and $1,716 ranking 152/185 respectively.

By comparison Australia is in the top 10 thrice, Italy in the top 30 twice and then the top 35 and the United States of America 4 times in the top 10, it goes without saying that Nigeria has no business paying its legislators in what is purportedly a representative democracy these atrocious amounts of cash that bilk and milk the country without contributing anything to its economic growth.

The consequences of expensive democracies

Worse still, it creates a competition for political office where the rewards far outweigh the commensurate perspiration leading to many situations where power-grabs by every means possible warps every notion of free and fair elections, talk less of representative democracy – it is utterly bad for Nigeria apart from the fact that it is unsustainable.

Looking at the chart again, you also wonder why Sub-Saharan African nations that hog the bottom third of GDP per capita tables are the ones that take the lead by far in the discrepancies between elected and elector besides the fact that only Ghana has consistently rewarded its electorate with the will of its people, Kenya did not in the penultimate election which has the current leadership indicted for crimes against humanity and Nigeria is a travesty in everything but name.

Nigeria is awash with oil money in the wrong hands which is used in acquisitive, ostentatious, hedonistic and wanton display of power, wealth, influence and mischief, it exacerbates a pressure cooker of ethno-religious and regional tensions, none of which the leadership have had the wherewithal to grapple with or understand that the consequences as it holds together with threadbare allegiances of snouts in trough might well be dire for the 2015 election year.

Enough is just enough

In my humble opinion, this democracy is neither representative nor working if the people we choose to represent us are so far removed from the reality of the citizenry that they literally live in a parallel universe, there ought to be no reason for Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana to be democratic outliers compared to the economic activity within their regions in comparison to their people, it calls for reform and this must be urgent, radical, far-reaching and deeply examining of the culture of corruption and influence-peddling we have allowed to become the raison d'être of political life.

This is the one time when the chorus from the village to the city and from the homes to the marketplaces of the country should ring loud – Enough is just enough.

Other reading

Nigeria: Our politically immature systems

Nigeria: Percentage Allowance Legislators

Nigeria: Testing the FOI Act 2011 on Legislator Salaries

An update: [October 6, 2011] The signed copy of the Freedom of Information Act 2011 can be downloaded from this link and it is provided courtesy of the Freedom of Information Coalition.

We have a Freedom of Information Act

With the signing of the Freedom of Information Act 2011 just as the end of the last legislative session by President Goodluck Jonathan, a milestone has been reached in the fledgling democratic experiment that Nigeria embarked on just 12 years ago.

The Enough is Enough organisation has posted a functionally legible copy of the Act here [1], it is however missing parts of Section 3 & 6 and all of Section 4 & 5 they provided a few highlights of the Act here [2], Funlayo Akinosi; a lawyer, writing for NigeriansTalk offers a useful perspective of the Act here [3].

Versions and some confusion

For the purposes of this blog, because of the missing bits which are germane to the series of points made, I will be using the harmonised version [4] of the Bill as provided by the Enough is Enough organisation, the differences between the Act and the Bill being the former having the force of law; Section 1 of the Bill does not appear in the Act, all thereby forcing a renumbering of all the Sections and the sub-sections follow a different multi-level numbering system.

The text of both the Act and the Bill remain functionally the same in terms of context and import but the Act clearly delineates lists better than the Bill.

Another version [4a] as provided by House of Representatives substitutes Act for Bill and looks very much like the harmonised Bill used in this blog and sourced from a link provided by Egghead Odewale.

Whilst the Act does make good reading along with the superfluity of legalese that would have lawyers raking in the dosh like it is going out of fashion, the presence of a set of rules, procedures, processes and guidelines to ensure Nigerians demand more openness in government and its operations is very welcome.

Does it work?

The next step is to prove that this Act is useable, enforceable and fit for its purpose and no better test of its pervasiveness can be conducted than to determine with clarity, fact and truth the true cost of our democracy.

Too many times, we, the people have been shielded from knowing in true terms how much our legislators earn and what additional allowances [5] they have on top of their salaries as they supposedly serve the people.

The Freedom of Information Act 2011 provides for a number of interesting uses to arrive at this important piece of democratic emancipation such that we can judge if the allowances are justifiable, if our democracy is exorbitant [6] and what percentage of the federal budget overhead [7] the legislature consumes.

An application for such information can be made to the Clerk of the National Assembly, unfortunately, their website is a mess; hopefully, with the needs to properly document records for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act, the websites of government establishments will be improved upon, updated regularly and promptly too.

The lay of the land

The National Assembly comprising the Senate and House of Representatives make up the federal legislature and it is thereby a public institution by reason of Section 3, sub-section 7 of the Bill.

A record of all names, salaries, titles and dates of employment of all employees is mandated by the Bill in Section 3, sub-section (3)(j).

Section 2 provides for the right of access to records without having to demonstrate any specific interest and Section 4 supports the right to request access to these records.

Section 5 requires that the information be made available within 7 days of making an application for the information, there should be no reason to transfer the request to another department as stated in Section 6 of the Bill and where that information cannot be provided the reasons for denial must be made with all the essential detail according to Section 8 or the public institution may extend the time required to provide the information according to Section 7.

Compelling public interest

The matter of legislator salaries and allowances are not sub judice, even if under review, salaries are being paid as set by the precedence of the previous legislative term and that should suffice and the information updated when available.

Hence, the public institution cannot find refuge in exceptions for law enforcement and investigation in Section 13 nor exception of personal information in Section 15.

The request in broad terms is to ascertain legislator salaries as in what a member of the House of Representatives or a Senator earns, tagged unto that without mentioning names, what emoluments and remuneration go to the principal offices of the National Assembly with particular reference to the offices as opposed to the person occupying the office.

It is important that legalese and abstruse interpretation is not used trammel access to what is public interest information where the public interest in the real cost of our democracy far outweighs the concerns of the legislature who are for all intents and purposes in public service and thereby employees of the people.

The Bill places the burden of proof on the public institution to provide the reasonable grounds for denying access to such information as delineated in Section 26.

Let it be tested

If this information is already publicly available then Section 27 suggests that this bill does not cover such as request and Section 29 informs that such a request cannot gain refuge within the Official Secrets Act.

In conclusion, a simple request for the running cost of our legislature should not encounter any difficulties; it should be documented, available, accessible and provided in the public interest and promotion of democracy – that will be the test of whether the Freedom of Information Act 2011 is worth the paper it is written on.

Sources

[1] Scanned copy of the Freedom of Information Act 2011 as a PDF file signed by the Clerk of the Nation Assembly.

[2] Highlights of Freedom of Information Act 2011

[3] NigeriansTalk | Freedom of Information Act 2011: Good Stuff!

[4] Harmonised version of the Freedom of Information Bill, 2011

[4a] Freedom of Information Act 2011 – House of Representatives

[5] Nigeria: Percentage Allowance Legislators

[6] Nigeria: Our exorbitant government

[7] Nigeria: Sanusi a worthy Nigerian

Nigeria: Presidency seeks the nth opinion

The captain needs crew

Steering the ship of state called Nigeria can be an arduous task and one should not begrudge a president the availability of human resources and more to concentrate on that job so as to perform to the best of his ability and hopefully for the best of Nigerians the dispatch of this responsibility.

The reference article from AllAfrica.com might soon be archived and hence, I take the liberty to quote extensively from it for record purposes in this blog to ensure that the context is maintained.

allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Jonathan Appoints Danjuma, Anyaoku Into Policy Committee

Soon after President Goodluck Jonathan took office as Acting President, he appointed a Presidential Advisory Council (PAC) [1] which was formed to “provide alternative inputs into policy formation; promote good governance in the areas of power, economy, security, infrastructure, social sector, the electoral process and the fight against corruption … It will evaluate policy implementation and advise Jonathan on areas requiring adjustments.”

“The council will also advise the Acting President on how to maximize the benefits derivable from government's efforts; advise on such actions and programmes that may improve credibility and performance of the government; and advise on any other matter referred to it.”

The PAC packed with expertise

The council was headed by Lt. General Theophilus Danjuma (Rtd.) and constitutional lawyer, Prof. Ben Nwabueze as deputy with the other members being a “former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Alfa Belgore, former Secretary-General of Commonwealth Emeka Anyaoku, former Inspector-General of Police M.D. Yusuf, former Minister of Science and Productivity Bartholomew Nnaji, pioneer Managing Director (MD) of Guaranty Trust Bank Fola Adeola {recently selected as a Presidential Running mate of a rival aspirant}, Mallam Abubakar Gimba, ex-Shell MD Basil Omiyi and Ambassador G. B. Preware.”

“Others include Chairman, National Economic Summit Group Sam Ohuabunwa, ex-MD of FSB International Bank, Mallam Muhammed Hayatuddeen, former Deputy Speaker Chibudom Nwuche, former Justice Minister and Attorney-General of the Federation Kanu Agabi and President of Africa Business Roundtable and former Minister of Industry Bamanga Tukur, former Mtel Chairman Hajiya Halita Aliyu, Chairman, Allied Energy Kase Lawal, Alhaji Ismaila Isa, Alhaji Magaji Danbatta, Prof. B. G. Bajoga, Dr. (Mrs) Sally Bolujoko and Mrs. Mariam Uwais are also members of the committee.”

The Nigerians called to service to advice the president on this council could not be faulted for their wealth of experience in governance, law, business, academia and international relations; they represented a broad cross-section of advice made available to a neophyte President who could do with all the guidance he could get.

The PAC belittled

The PAC recently produced a report that criticised the size of government and the need to trim down ministries and presidential aides to which an unnamed source within the presidency has responded saying, “that the Danjuma group is made up of people who do not understand the workings of government.”

The source further stressing that, “Danjuma and his people have become infamous because of the report. To them, the group does not understand issues like national character or the constitutional provision for the engagement of assistants.”

Having now been in office for over a year, it would be sad to conclude that power is already having a corrupting influence on this accidental president such that hubris is clouding his judgement that he feels that the PAC have no idea of what they are talking about.

The constituents of the PAC seem to be people of greatly independent means and they could easily have been gainfully employed in other activities than to have their counsel belittled because they have refused to play sycophant or genuflect to the Presidency by rubberstamping all actions especially where it appears the National Assembly has abdicated their responsibilities for oversight and moderation of the powers of the executive arm of government.

The Court of Goodluck the First

No limit has been placed on the number of advisers the Presidency can employ but that does not mean that there should be a race to break records for the numbers that can be engaged to prop up the office and offer it a mystique of distance and unapproachability due to courtiers exuding self-importance that comes with closeness to power.

The Presidency now has 133 aides [2] in hierarchies of duplicated functions with that atrocious setup that allows the First Lady to have two protocol officers and the aristocratic luxury of ladies-in-waiting; who being a Dame of dubious provenance has become Nigeria’s equivalent of Marie Antoinette.

Too many advisors hamper decisiveness

It is utterly absurd that there are six physicians to cater for the health of the President, his wife and the vice-President, all of them in their different cadres of seniority might introduce a confusion of diagnosis where normally people might be satisfied with a second opinion; the possibility of an nth opinion in critical matters might stifle decisiveness, thoroughness and agreement leading to complications and poor treatment of assessed situations.

Insult is added to injury with a Senegalese and Malian tailor on hand to make the President’s clothes and other personal assistance with grandiose titles that include special assistants on presidential household matters, domestic affairs, domestic matters, household administration, social events and household matters.

Why matters should differ from affairs escapes me but there must be some reason behind the madness and the semantics that create the differentiation between the roles that allows for the abuse of office that engenders a Presidency that has suddenly come into power and is at risk of intoxication redolent of absolute monarchies of old.

Not needed better heeded

The First Lady does not need her coterie of genuflectors just as the President cannot suggest that the presence of these acquiescent followers at best and entourage of fawning backscratching groupies at worst makes him more effective at being the best President Nigeria ever had.

Their presence risks distracting from the business of government as the elixir of megalomania is fed the President appealing to his vanity through adulation, toadying and mastery of grovelling for attention and self-promotion and selfish interest.

The President might well heed the good advice of the PAC, they have nothing to gain or lose from giving him good counsel; so rather than castigate the PAC, the truth is some excess load needs to be shed allowing for refinement and quality before the making of the Court of Goodluck the First becomes the finest parody out of Nollywood.

Sources

[1] allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Jonathan Appoints Danjuma, Anyaoku Into Policy Committee

[2] 234Next.com | President Jonathan's 133 aides

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.