Nigeria: INEC Voter Registration Review V

It ends tomorrow

We are coming to the close of the third week of voters’ registration in Nigeria; the exercise was after much anxiety extended for another week just 24 hours to the end of the original 14-day plan.

When the INEC Chairman met the Joint Committee on Electoral Matters at the Nigerian National Assembly he suggested that just one extra week would be needed to clear the backlog of unregistered possible voters.

Numbers and fumblers

The projection was to register 70 million Nigerians for the April 2011 elections, at the end of the two week period it was said that 59 million had been registered at the rate of 4.3 million people a day, however, with 48 hours to run, this number was revised downwards with 54.9 million having been registered at the rate of 3.2 million people a day.

Which #INECRegistration figure is right? 59m in 14 days http://j.mp/gKtZxS or 54.9m in 19 days? http://j.mp/igSFH5

That great discrepancy in figures is worrisome because it suggests the estimators were out by 1.1 million people per day, meaning that at the end of the first 14 day period, the figures were grossly inflated by 14.2 million prospective voters.

Many will lose out

Looking at the figures, it then suggests that about 44.8 million voters were registered by Saturday the 29^th of January 2011 and by the 3^rd of February 2011 another 10.1 million voters had been added to the tally leaving an estimated 15.1 million Nigerians left to avail themselves of registration in the last 48 hours.

There is no way that number would be catered for and it appears INEC might just get to 62 million at best with 8 million seemingly disenfranchised and that might be due to a number of factors from poor logistics and planning (observed as overcrowded polling units), malfunctioning registration equipment or procrastination and apathy on the part of Nigerians.

#INECregistration, We are down to one DDC for now. The second one's overheating so it's been shut down to receive 'fresh air'.

The Punch: Relocate DDC machines to populous areas in Lagos’:http://bit.ly/ftCTw7 via @addthis #INECRegistration

bubusn If INEC won't move less crowded units around, we'll move people around to them. #INECRegistration

There is probably no case for extending the registration period beyond the 5^th of February 2011, we had all been adequately informed, it could have been properly planned for, the people could have taken time to ensure that they were registered despite the frustrating situations they might have encountered and it could have been dealt with, with a great sense of civic responsibility for what the 2011 elections mean for Nigeria.

@bubusn @inecnigeria How much of the #INECRegistration issues are due to INEC or are due to people who did not prioritise this activity?

Champion Newspapers http://bit.ly/h9h0Q2 The governor ofAnambra State only just performed his #INECRegistration yesterday2/2/11

The same problems again

The logistics issues remained but not as grave as they were at the beginning, it was more about the inadequate supply of DDC machines to meet the demand and a few instances of the inability of the registered to collect their cards and where they have, the cards may not have been laminated.

AkwaImoh #INECRegistration some centres in my Location are not laminating the Voters Card. And this doesn't help people because it will be hard to maintain

Some criminality had also been observed of people being charged to register or print their cards, in other cases people were registering in order to sell their cards to the highest bidder.

nelsonisibor Today I experienced first-hand how party agents when unchecked can hijack #INECregistration, it's like a 'film trick'.

The Sun News On-line |Voters’ #INECRegistration: Oyo police arrest PDP chieftain with 25 underage students http://bit.ly/dWq9Rkvia @addthis

That latter situation should if the technical specification of the registration dynamics are as we are told root out people who are using false identities because pictures and fingerprints have to match to validate a voter and allow the person participate in voting.

However, there would be many who would try to game the system.

It is not mandatory

The illegalities include making having a voter’s registration card to access goods and services in Nigeria, that is unconstitutional; it is within the rights of each citizens to decide to participate in the electoral process or not. However, if such a person does not participate, it would be of concern if the said person then feels they have assumed the right to criticise how they are governed.

Mandatory Voter #INECRegistration Unconstitutional: A Judiciary For Sale! http://bit.ly/eXONhy via @addthis

amasonic A voters' card is meant for voting, not as a requirement when seeking for employment #inecregistration

Processing the data

The next stage which could be fraught with issues is the collation of the voters register where the data on the DDC machines and the external hard disks are fed into the super computer that would process all the information and eventually produce a voters list that can be inspected by users.

If INEC do in fact capture 88% of the electorate and the turnout for elections exceeds 70% of that number, we might well have the makings of credible elections if the votes are counted as the voters have intended.

@EngrMuza @sfladipo @nnabros It shows that after #INECRegistration we have to keep the pressure on to Select, Vote & Protect #RSVP

There is one day left and it is worrisome to hear that there are many especially amongst the youth who have not risen to the revolutionary opportunity to rise, speak up and let their voices be heard about the direction of their country.

BSKukawa I think Nigerians need to be educated on their rights. #INECRegistration

nelsonisibor #INECregistration Tomorrow, I'm mobilizing a hundred friends who are yet to register. We’ll be @ different PU's as early as 5am to get a head start.

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: INEC Voter Registration Review IV

There is much to be done

With two days left for the voters’ registration it is becoming evident that everyone who needs to register might not get that opportunity.

The past weekend offered the opportunity for many to turn up and register but the process was fraught with many reports of printing problems as a result of exhausted ink cartridges.

The sadder aspect of this was that INEC in most cases did not have stocks of spare ink cartridges that the registered voters had to wait for days to collect their registration cards. Some more resourceful Nigerians paid for ink cartridges themselves.

The power issues do not seem to have dominated the news wires anymore because the same resourceful Nigerians have provided power through generators or extension cables to help keep the process moving.

A probable extension looms

The queues are however getting longer and though the process of registration is easier and faster, it is unlikely that those who have left it so late would gain a reprieve without an extension of the voters’ registration exercise.

To this end, the legislative houses have tentatively agreed to an extension having met with the INEC Chairman who said he needs another week and NGN 6.6 billion extra to do this.

One is taken aback that INEC could have exhausted their budget without contingencies that they have to return cap-in-hand to seek more funding.

The figures bandied around indicate that less than 50% of the expected populace that fall within voting age are registered; it would in the long run lead to questions about the credibility of the elections whilst allowing for opportunities to rig the elections.

Fingered errors

At the meeting of the legislators we learnt that the original registration of the president at his hometown did not include his fingerprints and that he had to do it again.

Amelioration processes for entering fingerprints for those registered without then in the first place seem to have problems, you can check of all your fingerprints have been captured on your card by checking is the 5 small squares on either side of your photograph on your voter’s card are black or hollow squares. They need to be dark for your registration to be valid.

The Chairman also volunteered after having stated on BBC Africa Have Your Say; that amputees and those with special needs would be catered for that there really was no provision for them, which is sad.

Another issue that has raised concern is that of Muslim women in religious garb that includes the covering of the face. Some are advocating their right to be registered which is inalienable but how do you recognise the face of someone behind a veil? There is a need for common-sense and reasonableness in terms of religious adherence and the understanding ones civics responsibilities which invite some compromise.

Security issues were prevalent, some machine were stolen and found in the strangest of places, Youth Corps members were attacked by agree crowds and some INEC personnel have lost their lives, which is unfortunate.

Security issues were prevalent, some machine were stolen and found in the strangest of places, Youth Corps members were attacked by agree crowds and some INEC personnel have lost their lives, which is unfortunate.

Reconstituting an extension

However, the most critical matter has to be the one of the extension of the voters’ registration exercise beyond Saturday the 29^th of January 2011. Some had irresponsibly announced on Twitter that it had been extended for 4 weeks when that was not the case.

There are serious constitutional provisions for the extension, INEC was running this exercise on a very tight schedule, and the registration as far as the Electoral Act 2010 is concerned expects that the exercise be completed no later than 60 days before the election that utilises the register putting the last possible date at the 2^nd of February 2011.

The legislature would either have had to shorten that duration between registration and elections or reschedule the election timetable after which INEC can announce the extension.

Government 101 and Project Management

The issue of the closed schools also came up since in most cases school premises were not in use and professional teachers were not engaged in the registration process. There are reasons why the schools have remained closed but for the Senate to order the Minister of Education to open to the schools rather than advise her of the need to smacked of an overreach of the Separation of Powers.

The infancy of our democratic process is so evident with poor appreciation of the rule of law, the egress of the lack of understanding of the Separation of Powers and feeling that grandstanding equals due process.

If this INEC Voter Registration process fails it would clearly be a case of atrocious Project Management on an appalling scale, there probably is a way to redeem this exercise but it requires that Nigerians who have not registered turn out in droves to register showing there is much to be done, that they will not be disenfranchised and forcing the necessary extension to capture the majority of the voting population to act for choosing the government they want and deserve.

References with developing stories

Nigerian #INECRegistration BiDaily – Published AM & PM with an average of 150 contributions

Reps amend Electoral Act to allow more time for registration | 234Next.com

Voter Registration: INEC Has No Right To Extend Time

Voter registration: Jega wants N6.6bn for extension | Tribune Nigeria

» Voters’ Registration: Lagos suspends restriction of movement on sanitation day - Vanguard (Nigeria)

If #INECRegistration should stop no longer than 60 days before elections, it cannot be extended beyond 02/02/2011 http://j.mp/fBcPUi Page 3

#INECRegistration Has No Right To Extend Time http://bit.ly/eB4D5M Constitutional issue could include changing election timetable.

Nigeria: INEC Voter Registration Review III

Over the last 7 days

A complete 7-day review of the Nigerian INEC Voter’s Registration campaign brings mixed results, there have been many successes, people in pictures holding up their voter’s registration cards, some completing the activity well under 10 minutes and closer to home my father and siblings having a hitch free registration experience within the first few days.

However, in this hugely logistical national exercise where INEC has called on resources that it assumed it could rely on without adequate checks and controls, there were going to be many failings and those threatened to derail the whole exercise, exacerbate residual apathy, frustrate many and allow for all sorts of nefarious activity.

Rugged fingers cannot linger

Soon we discovered that the scanning equipment had been over-calibrated in such a way that it could not clearly distinguish the whorls of the fingerprints, this required a software patch, we also learnt hands had to be washed clean, some even cleaned with methylated spirit and then the illogical idea of passing the hands through sand before the fingerprint scans – it was like any crazy idea would do.

The frustration with the fingerprint scans lead to some polling units short-circuiting the workflow by registering people without the requisite fingerprint scans. Rumours were rife about all sorts of unconfirmed directives but with the force of social networking we were able to get a definitive answer of the INEC chairman when he appeared on the BBC Africa Have Your Say programme.

All voter registration cards issued without the requisite 10-fingerprint scans were grossly deficient and considered VIOD. Such persons with deficient registrations were advised to return to their polling unit to effect a correction to their registration status.

A battery of failing ink-jets

Beyond that once the patches sped up the registration process the Digital Data Capture machines sometimes froze requiring a reboot, in certain other cases the data was lost but the more serious issue centred around presumably fully-charged batteries running out of power for the laptop and printers – some polling units enjoyed the goodwill of the citizens with the provision of power generators but many other polling units had to close for the day.

Where some did get their data on the systems, the printers had run out of ink or there wasn’t sufficient power to run both the laptop and the printer, they people had to return at another time to collect their registration cards.

The INEC Chairman said the area centres managing the polling unit regions had recharging facilities for the batteries, one would have expected there would be spare batteries and ink cartridges but the proper management of those components seemed to be lacking, in some cases the INEC personnel who mainly consisted of members of the National Youth Corps Service (NYSC) lost some components and the lax security also meant batteries went missing.

No pay and bad days

Sadly, in what is typical of the Nigerian labour market, the NYSC members were part of the critical resource that could celebrate the success of the INEC project, but INEC was rather grudging in encouraging them, first by blaming them for failings that were clearly the poor planning of INEC who also should have worked with the banking sector to expedite the tedious banking processes that held up payments to these industrious and enthusiastic Nigerians for up to 6-days into the registration exercise.

In settings like this, some Nigerians defaulted to electoral criminality; one instance had machines stolen only to reappear with 2,000 registrants with seemingly matching fingerprints. Some machines were stolen but the thieves were soon apprehended.

Dooms to the hoodlums

The more worrisome parts of the criminality were party agents commandeering positions at the polling units to get their members registered first, again, the technological constraints of power, batteries and ink running out could have made some people want to get in first.

Certain INEC personnel got beaten up by irate crowds, a few others might have come to an untimely death leading to a shoot-to-kill policy being adopted in Jos to deal with people who fail to be law abiding and conforming to the order required to facilitate a smooth registration.

When certain party agents seized the registration documents to copy the names and addresses of the registrants that would have been the time to bring on the cavalry and march the culprits down to secure lockups for an indeterminate period of time.

Some NYSC members protested going on strike, this was certainly avoidable but unfortunate but even after a full week of registrations it is sad to learn that some areas in Nigeria still have not caught sight of any INEC personnel or prospect of registration.

Nigerian logistics and planning

With about 132,000 DDC machines deployed nationwide and another 12,000 going out this weekend, there is hope that everyone who needs to be registered will get registered.

With all the issues that have dogged the initial registration process, there is a prospect of extending the registration period; it should not stop Nigerians from crowding out the polling units to show the enthusiasm and willingness to embrace change and the readiness to perform their civic duty.

We should not leave it all to the last minute, there is much to do and the early we go out to get registered the surer we can be that it would be done eventually and more importantly successfully.

Hope on the ropes of networking

On the whole, the take up has been good, the response has been enthusiastic, people are encourage and persuaded, the week has been a qualified success and looking into the next week, there sure is a lot more that can be done to make it even better.

Twitter has been a useful resource with the exercise bearing the #INECRegistration hashtag and well over 3,000 tweets have been posted.

The #RSVP project have logged issues around the country on the EiENigeria.org website a sample of the relevant tweets appear below along with the Nigerian #INECRegistration BiDaily that I published and a rival daily that aggregates similar material.

We look forward to the next 8 days with great expectations and the opportunity to make Nigeria become the country of our dreams.

Sample Twitter Feeds

forakin Find your local #INECRegistration centre here - Zoom in the GoogleMap to your Nigerian Polling Unit (INEC) -http://bit.ly/ewXgvA

eolutosin RT @dfasoro: Mobile Booth Finder: http://t.co/WybtTSY @Possicon@eolutosin @theglobalchild @wumidiji #INECregistration #RSVP #IfNaijaVotes

forakin It is imperative your #INECRegistration includes your 10-fingerprint scans or it is VOID. Return to your centre to correct the situation.

RT @bubusn #INECRegistration BIG weekend. This weekend. Help where you can. Let show community spirit. Something good can come out of Naija.

eolutosin no battery and therefore no work today.#INECRegistration officials just relaxing n enjoying d moment. Centre is M http://twitpic.com/3s03ni

bubusn My #EiENigeria #INECregistration interview with BBC Network Africa: http://bbc.in/1iL6JA (from 22:12 mins).

Possicon #inecregistration An ACN member just provided Generator to power the machines here

Possicon If u don’t know ur polling booth, check here: http://www.enoughisenoughnigeria.com/blog/?p=849 #inecregistration

gbengasesan #INECregistration tip: If you're posting a picture of your Voter's Card, please cover your home address. Except it's not where you live :)

eolutosin Well, they are being paid the allowance now. One of the#INECRegistration corps members just came. RT @rosanwo: @eolutosin any remedy?

forakin Can't understand how #INECRegistration don't realise the Youth Corpers are critical to the success of this exercise and not pay them yet.

forakin RT @bubusn @Sadiq_Hamid It's harder to rig elections with a massive voter turnout & all political parties running #RSVP#INECRegistration

forakin @OtobiBABA Go and do your #INECRegistration & if you believe the person you want to vote for should have a chance, get out and campaign too.

EiENigeria #INECRegistration. Its day 7 and its Friday, do something right today, go get Registered so you can vote in April! http://myloc.me/gOnBL

forakin @Sadeeqabdul I doubt God wants to be thanked for your choosing not to do your civic duty (#INECRegistration).

TruthHuntr Hmmm... RT @NigeriaNewsdesk NEXT — Government may extend voter registration period http://j.mp/gWwTMV #INECregistration #RSVP

dozenhost #INECRegistration Tip, Have your address written down on a sheet of paper too, that can quicken the registration process too.

purefoyCNN Not many people registering in Mushin today, but despite recent wahalla (Wazobia said 10 ten dead) not many problems with #INECregistration

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

Nigeria: INEC Voter Registration Review II

INEC finds a scapegoat

One has to spare a thought for the humble youth corps members press-ganged into the service of the nation to help in the INEC voter registration process then pilloried as cretins by the chieftains of INEC for the abject failings of their project.

It is appalling that a Prince Solomon Soyebi who happens to have the grandiose and inflated title of National Commissioner in charge of Information and Publicity for INEC called a press conference to address the problem with the DDC machines and in a derisive and denigrating tone suggested [1] that the youth corps members were the primary cause of the problems.

In his words, “the Commission overrated the Corps members mobilised for the exercise, thinking that they knew the workings of the computer-based equipment.”

I would proffer that the first law of project management is – Do NOT assume anything at the onset. Else by decomposition you make an ass of u and me.

He went on to say, “We assumed that these Corps members should know how to operate a simple machine, like the DDC machine, in addition to the training that they had, but, unfortunately, they disappointed us. We discovered they could not and many of them had to be battling with it, unsuccessfully.”

The blame is squarely on INEC

This is a classic case of a well-financed authority that scrimps and scrapes on resources looking for cheap labour, investing little in their training and then expecting them to perform fully motivated with excellence.

I have to commend the youth corps members that that have been despite that opprobrium heaped on them by that wretched ungrateful organisation, they have been very resourceful, highly motivated, extremely enthusiastic, taken beatings to the failings of INEC in some places and still dedicated themselves to service with I dare say, patriotic fervour.

INEC however, once again blames others for the malfunctioning of inadequate systems and the tedious banking processes for not paying the youth corps members on time.

You begin to wonder when INEC will make a clean breast of things and accept responsibility for their unprofessionalism and the less that supportive stance they have taken with regards to the people who are supposed to make them main goal of effective voter registration achievable.

Technical problems requiring a software upgrade

One is however left confused with what the problem really is when the Chief Press Secretary to INEC chairman, Mr. Kayode Idowu suggests [2] that the problems are technical rather than the one of stupid staff.

In any case, one wonders why INEC has two mouth organs who appear to be speaking with a forked tongue.

However, it took the chagrin of the Senate President who had attempted twice to register and failed to elicit the real truth behind the technical problems and that came from the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in Benue State, Alhaji Nasiru Ailara, and he said as he scampered and groveled at the residence of the eminent personality, “We have identified the problem, and provided a solution with new software that would address the problem. Please accept our apology for inconveniences.”

The problem, not a problem – the software needs to be upgraded, now how youth c corps members orpers were supposed to rewrite buggy software on-the-fly to redeem the sinking image of INEC escapes me but we should not let INEC get away with the blame culture.

They sent people out, unpaid, unsupported, untrained and poor equipped with sub-standard equipment and expected miracles – I forgot, we are in Nigeria, they were sent out on w wing and a prayer.

Tips and trips

However, new directives have been drawn up to help facilitate the registration process.

• Hands must be washed and clean before arriving at the registration centre, I would say good Samaritans should also make that available at the centre just in case having been in queues perspiration had soiled the fingers.
• The resolution (I wonder if that is sensitivity or pitch) of the fingerprint scanner has been reduced.
• The scanning must be done in the shade.
• Absurdly, the fingerprints should be taking standing up – you have to laugh
• Find your local registration centre here - Zoom in the GoogleMap to your Nigerian Polling Unit (INEC) -http://bit.ly/ewXgvA

Ask questions

There are lessons learnt and INEC is slowing addressing them but they have not broached the matter of people who have obtained registration cards without fingerprinting and there rumour about the suspension of that requirement that was spread yesterday has not been corroborated by any of these officials.

Professor Attahiru Jega will be on BBC Africa Have Your Say [3] at 1600GMT on Tuesday 18th January; you have the opportunity to ask him some questions live or via Twitter with the #ASKINEC hashtag and he better have an apology, some encouragement and gratitude for the services of the youth corps members striving to save the battered reputation of the organisation he runs and that of himself.

Sources

[1] The Nation - INEC blames hitches on Youth Corps members

[2] allAfrica.com: Nigeria: INEC Moves to Eliminate Hitches

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

Read the Nigerian #INECRegistration BiDaily which is published in morning and evening editions aggregating Twitter feeds related to the registration exercise.

Nigeria: INEC Voter Registration Review I

Get involved

At the beginning of Day 3 of the Nigerian INEC Voter Registration exercise, it is time to take stock of the Successes, Opportunities, Failings and Threats (SOFT) situation and plan for the remaining 13 days of this exercise.

I will start with an admonition and encouragement taken from the website of Reclaim Naija Project [1] – “Please don’t just sit in your house and complain about bad government, bad leaders, bad roads, poor electricity supply, poor health care, poor quality schools, the corrupt police, kidnapping, armed robbery and other bad things happening in our country.”

This is a warning against apathy and a statement to encourage all Nigerians with opportunity to get up, get involved, participate and rally with others who want to see a change in our dear country.

It is working, but …

Pictures captured on the Nigerian INEC Registration BiDaily [2] show that people have successfully gone through the process of registration which has resulted in handling an Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Voter’s Card, but this activity has been fraught with problems.

The issues of preparation were myriad from people unsure of where they were to register to them arriving at centres long before the personnel had arrived and many centres opened really late. It appears for such a massive national project the logistical, training, risk mitigation and contingency issues were not properly addressed.

Failings in logistics were unfortunate because INEC could have piggy-backed on courier organisations like DHL, or cash security movement firms, even manufacturing networks of Dangote Cement or CocaCola could have been co-opted to deliver staff and materials to their respective venues on time.

The setup

Along with that, it appears the kit that included a laptop, a printer, a fingerprint scanner, a web camera, a laminator, a USB hub, an external hard disk and a battery were almost a conundrum of technology to setup to work correctly, some personnel did not have cables to connect up the systems.

That was fundamentally appalling; their handlers should have ensured there was a checklist review of all the different components before the personnel left their bases without assuming everything was correctly packaged.

After setup, it was discovered that in some cases the battery packs were not charged and there were no backup battery packs, I can only wonder who the project managers of this exercise were and who recommended the equivalent of going on a long Nigerian journey without a spare tyre – with one battery powering the printer and the laptop when all attached devices take their power feeds, the power drain would be faster than the generally accepted battery life of a few hours.

Could there have been solar-powered solutions too? One wonders but this was not an exercise that could be done on the cheap and so present preventable failures.

Familiarity and ease of use

The operating system on the laptops is Linux based, the personnel might well be familiar or unfamiliar with this environment but this could create bottlenecks and there were instances of these personnel forgetting their passwords and hence being unable to access their systems, the pressure of having people queue up ready for registration whilst the personnel were fumbling with logging on could not have engendered a stress-free environment.

Once the systems were setup, people could approach the personnel sit in from of the computer and facilitate the recording of their personal data. Obviously, people how had ID cards make the job easier because confusing spelling could be easily hold up the process, the dialog interface was however not as user-easy as it could have been.

The gender selection list should have been a radio-box to select either male or female and not a drop-down box – there is an instance where a male voter was registered as female.

All 8 fingers and 2 thumbs? Really?

The most troublesome aspect of the exercise centred on the fingerprint scanner and quite a number of issues arose from it not working to it not being sensitive enough to detect the whorls that define the fingerprint.

The technical issues first determined that in certain instances the driver of the fingerprint scanner was not loaded, without this, the fingerprint scanner will not work.

Where the fingerprint scanner was working but not able to identify the finger whorls, it was determined that hands need to be washed and cleaned as well as having the pick-up on the scanner wiped clean too.

I was surprised to see that all 8 fingers and 2 thumbs had to be scanned, the need for such a data set is questionable; when you combine the specific details of the person with a single thumbprint the probability that the same can be recreated elsewhere with a new uniqueness has to have a very low probability.

10 fingers is definitely data-uniqueness and data-quality gone mad, whilst a match would undoubtedly be without dispute considering the finicky issues of capturing just one finger and the throughput of processing large crowds with the limitations presented by the setup which has its weakest link at the power supply – this is unfortunate.

It would have been better to have a hand scanner or a 10-fingerprint scanner rather than the low-sensitivity single-digit scanner for all 10 digits in turn – on some videos I saw, a finger could take a good few minutes to register.

This arrangement might have served well for small numbers of people in little offices but not for a mass voter registration campaign.

Process and processing

Again, it has taken the resourcefulness, improvisation and initiative of Nigerians to ameliorate a poorly planned process that might have seemed to test well in laboratory settings but fell apart in the field – the charlatans that put this together must never get another hearing for their hare-brained schemes and snake-oil remedies again.

I was engaged in a Facebook face-off with an old school colleague of mine and there I learnt someone had walked off with his voter registration card without presenting fingerprints. Naturally, that registration should be void except where there other distinguishing data has been recorded to maintain data uniqueness.

On a well-designed system, the algorithm should have had specific prerequisites fulfilled before the process moved to the next stage and the print function should not have been enabled if the fingerprints had not yet been captured.

After the form has been printed out, the card needs to be cut out; this could have been pre-perforated paper that was easy to tear than having to handle scissors; the risk of forgeries appearing more professional looking than the real thing is there.

In all, the whole exercise is picking up and working, the personnel appear to be optimistic and enthusiastic, Twitter is alive with reports and the Ushahidi platform is deployed to capture issues mapped to locations.

Tips and more

@bubusn suggests

Tweeting about registration issues? Format: "#INECRegistration "

#INECRegistration You can find the "PU Number" on the silver box that the corpers use to carry the DDC machines

#INECRegistration Tip for the ladies: There's a special line for women. You get to register faster!

And something we all have to keep in mind - #INECRegistration Anyone can win an argument about how terrible Nigeria is. But only great ppl can help before pointing fingers. That is the spirit.

Post tweets with at least the #INECRegistration hashtag, you can also use #RSVP, it helps to monitor what is going and important issues might get captured in the BiDaily.

See NIGERIA 2011 ELECTIONS: CAN INEC DO IT? ~ NIGERIAN CURIOSITY for another perspective on the 2 days of registration.

We all have our hands on deck, this registration exercise must succeed and we need every improvisation we can get to make it work, whatever you can do to help would be welcome, drinks and food for the personnel, extension cables when the batteries conk out and loads of patience.

Register | Select | Vote | Protect – we are in the first critical stage of reclaiming Nigeria for Nigerians and going back to the age-old definition of democracy – the government of the people by the people for the people – it starts with your registration and by all means make time, never leave it to the last minute.

Sources

[1] Reclaim Naija | Your Vote is Your Power

[2] Nigerian INEC Registration BiDaily

Akin Konsult gets registered in less than 35

Hardly doing business smoothly

Just about a year ago, a report was published about the cost of doing business around the globe from the basic registration of the entity through to getting elements together to make that business function.

The bottleneck impeding the smooth transaction of business registration is the bureaucracy that underpins the system in most cases, but bureaucracies do not have to be all that bad. Properly managed and efficient bureaucracies do exist and function like clockwork.

For instance, with the basic information of being a single man with a salary, a mortgage and no other extraneous liabilities; I file my taxes online from inception to completion in less than 25 minutes, if it takes an hour for anyone else, they must be filing for team.

“Den say” to nothing happening

So, I finally decided to form a company and register one in the Netherlands where I live, the residual Nigerian in me trying to allay concerns about the process immersed myself in asking questions and seeking first-hand information from others.

I sunk into the “den say” complex – “den say” {A pidgin English translation of they said, they being anyone and everyone} the process of accumulating information from everywhere but authenticated verifiable sources till you have enough to knock the courage and boldness out of you to do what should be done. Read this in the light of the residual Nigerian lurking in my seemingly Western outlook.

This silly situation basically kept me from doing this stuff for months because I was waiting to have my hand held through the process when I could have just read up on the stuff in the first place.

Get on with it, yourself

Anyway, I finally went to the company registration website and immediately found the forms I needed to fill for a sole proprietorship – in English.

Bless these people, the English end of the form was filled in and it automatically filled in the official Dutch version so you just got it right – thankfully, ICT Consultant translates to ICT Consultant in Dutch, the aspect of design, architecture and development is easily done with a quick chat on MSN Messenger with a friend and we were done.

I printed out the form and left it a while until I was overcome with shingles, but it was at the back of my mind. Meanwhile, I had a chat to a friend who had just finished a company registration last week, it was a positive ”den say”.

All the help and more

So, this afternoon, as I realised I had strength to do something, I left home for the Kamer van Koophandel (KvK), namely, the Chamber of Commerce which is a few hundred metres from the Central Station in Amsterdam.

As I got to the KvK, I asked in English about company registrations, the friendly receptionist immediately gave me a VAT form to go with my company registration and a ticket signifying my turn in the queue with a warning that it might take 15 minutes to get called. I think I arrived there at just before half-past three in the afternoon – they close at 5 o’ clock.

I filled in the financial projections for the VAT registration and wondered, I had just walked into the Chamber of Commerce a foreign not speaking the lingo to register my company and it would be done in minutes without having had any money exchanging hands to get in the queue, having some urchin demand something to see my forms and then dismiss them out-of-hand because palms have not been greased.

I snapped out of that trance quickly enough to realise, I am in the Netherlands not Nigeria and my number came up E42. He asked if I could speak Dutch, I said badly, and he replied, no problem, we help as many languages as we can speak.

All done in 35 or less

No tension, as we entered his office, he asked if I was registered with the local government, I thought I was, I have been paying council taxes for years, the payer is definitely no ghost.

I produced the forms and my identity, a British passport as I explained the difference between England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom which consists of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – lots of light hearted banter, I signed the form and my company was registered, within 5 minutes, I had the confirmation that I own and run Akin Konsult, an ICT consultancy as a business entity in the Netherlands.

Another 10 minutes, the process had been completed for my VAT registration all in one go and at one basic cost that did not exceed EUR 30.

In all, I probably spent 35 minutes from the time I walked in the KvK and left the proud owner of a fully registered sole proprietorship all managed and steered by people who are a members of a bureaucracy no doubt but are satisfied with their jobs, willing to help, very friends, deftly efficient and quite knowledgeable about their tasks.

Most importantly, they were doing me no favours and they were asking for no favours, they were just doing their jobs and I left extremely impressed with what should be an everyday circumstance anywhere in the world.

I would indeed want to find out the experiences of company registrations in other countries especially the one that leaves the residual Nigerian awakened from dormancy when it should have been extinct.