Opinion
By Dan Aniesi
I got several calls from potential voters in my community, people that I have preached to, appealed to, and some of them I outrightly pressured to leave their jobs and go to do registrations, that they have been going to pick their cards but cannot find them, and at a point, that they were told their PVC was not printed. It is hard for me because I recall that some of them told me they will not register because they do not believe that the Nigeria system works and that it is all a hoax. I recalled assuring them that things are different now and that the system has been improved, and that is the truth. So when they came with “I told you so”, it got to me, but I am still standing on my position that the system has improved and that we should trust the system. I like to think that the right thing to do is to believe that INEC, staffed with Nigerians living in Nigeria, under the Chairmanship of Prof Mahmood Yakubu, a Guerrilla Warfare expert, an accomplished and I believe; a conscious scholar, a Professor of Political History and International Studies; should be believed, and given the vote of confidence by Nigerians, to do their job, which is to take the opinions of Nigeria expressed through their votes and declare the very same opinions of Nigerians. I believe that INEC should be believed, but does it mean INEC should not be questioned? No. I will therefore like to assemble some of the questions I believe are important, and that when answered, the confidence of the people in INEC will be increased.
Recently, voters’ registration was declared and Nigerians went to register. INEC was giving us updates on registrations by state I believe every week. The registrations were carried out, ward by ward, it is these wards by wards that INEC collates by LGA and by states. So, INEC has numbers of total registrations by wards. INEC later came back to us to tell us the numbers of valid and invalid registrations, and numbers by zone were given.
A question has been asked for INEC to help aNigerians understand why the South-East and South-South which has the overall lowest number of new registrations, have by far the highest number of invalid registrations. What makes a registration invalid? I could think that double registration or maybe underage could make a registration invalid, could there be any other reasons? Why is it difficult for INEC to communicate to the people involved, why their registration was invalid? Can INEC present to Nigerians the list of these invalid registrations and the reasons for their invalidations? If someone’s registration was invalid, and the person is a new voter and not underaged, how can they, or what can they do to validate their registration? If underage invalidates registration, how come underage voters’ PVCs were printed in large numbers and they are voting in every election since 2015 as I can recall? NONE OF THESE QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED BY INEC.
The questions above became necessary because INEC had told us that they are running a digital process, which means that the codes have been written properly and machines will simply sort the data and present the facts. Anyone with a little appreciation of technology will understand, that running biometric data through a proper system will significantly identify and eliminate double registrations, sort out the age range, and can probably raise questions on the facial appearance of underaged, identify similar pictures, and identify old pictures as digital picture capturing dates the images digitally. But alas! INEC released preliminary voters register with the same pictures with different names and some are the same pictures with the same names, leading to the question, did INEC conduct manual sorting of the biometric data or was it processed digitally as collected? Was the processing of the INEC data done for the whole of Nigeria or was it done for some zones? Could it be that INEC was in the process of processing these data, and have not conducted for some zones before releasing the temporary voters register? Has INEC now conducted the final sorting? INEC said that they have printed the voters’ cards, and people are picking up theirs as we can see. The question is, has INEC printed all the voters’ cards or are we expecting more? With a deadline of the end of January, one should suppose that INEC has printed all the voters’ cards. If INEC has printed all the voters’ cards, what is delaying the final voters register, which should be a precursor to printing the voters’ cards? INEC please help Nigerians understand what is going on.
One will assume that INEC has printed the total number of new valid registrations that it had validated. If INEC has printed all valid registrations, have they distributed all of them to the respective wards? This question is pertinent because to be specific; the INEC staff that have come to share the newly printed voters’ card said there is about zero to zilch new voters’ card for PU 04/04/07/011 in particular. Now, this specific polling unit had first-time registrations, but no card was returned. So did INEC print their cards, was their registration invalid? How come the registrations in a particular PU, registration that was conducted by trained INEC staff, and their printouts were issued to them, all invalid? Did INEC print the cards but have not delivered them? Some of the people affected have begun to suggest that compromised INEC staff must have sold their PVCs to politicians. I have continued to dispel this idea, because what will they use them to do when we are doing biometric capturing? But then I think to myself; if INEC capturing machine can capture the biometrics of people whose live pictures could not be taken and hence their passports were used, will the INEC BVAS be able to accredit people in their absence? I have personally written INEC an e-mail on the issue of this PU, if they will respond to it, it may be after the election, or maybe tomorrow. I will be going to their office in the LGA to submit a hard copy letter this next week.
I have seen the record of PVC collections update in Lagos, so I believe there are records for other states and this is a good thing from INEC. One thing that is conspicuously missing in that table, however; is the NUMBER OF PVC PRINTED AND DELIVERED TO BE DISTRIBUTED. Moving on from that, pray, tell us INEC; WHO ARE THE PEOPLE DENYING NIGERIANS THEIR PVCS BECAUSE OF THEIR ETHNIC NATIONALITIES? These reports have been coming, has the INEC investigated them? What is the truth? Why does it take so much time to collect the PVCs? Some people have reported going to the collection points for 6 to 7 days in some locations before they finally collected, some make these number of visits or more only to be told that their own is not available. What do we make of this if INEC does not help us understand? Is it a case of inefficiency? Is it complicity? Is it both and who knows; more?
While I hope that INEC will help Nigerians understand what is going on, it is evident that many things are amiss. INEC need to really help us with answers. Obviously, INEC staff are not recruited from heaven, it is still a human system, if not how do we explain that names of foreigners found their way into our INEC database, when the capturing was supposed to be done in person? Who were the perpetrators of Omuma Magic, who thumb printed for the passport photographs? Who will vote for those phantom registrations? If the Omuma Magic was not perpetrated by INEC staff, it must have been perpetrated by those to whom some INEC staff gave their capturing machines. At one time I recall pleading with INEC staff covering my area to take the machines to the wards when they were given restrictions because of insecurities, they expressed their willingness to go to the wards but explained they could not because of instructions given to them, they also informed us that that the locations of the machines are monitored in real-time. My request was rejected but I was excited, first as a stickler to rules; that they stuck to instructions given to them, and that if the machines’ locations are monitored in real-time, that it means the system’s integrity is greatly improved. So when I noticed all these gaps, hear about foreigners on our database, see biometric registrations completely done with passport pictures, with unanswered questions here and there, see the harvesting of VINs by politicians, because there is no way that politicians will be harvesting VINs if someone has not asked for them to provide them to get criminally assisted, these things tend to question my belief in the integrity of this system. But I know that the right thing to do is to trust INEC, but in trusting INEC, we have to have ideas as to what is going on.
INEC Nigeria, please help us o.
A.
Tags: Dan Aniesi INEC Prof Mahmood Yakubu
