By Olisa Akukwe<\/p>\n
Edo election has just been concluded, with the usual recriminations and
\ncounter recriminations. The opposition party that lost the election,
\ncharacteristically refused to accept the result. And for good reasons!
\nMany of the election observers also reported unfair and opaque practices.
\nEdo citizens are still very divided.
\nBut non of these are surprising. Critical national observers know that no
\nnational and sub-national election in Nigeria has been free of rigging,
\nmanipulation and compromise. It has only been of differences in degrees.
\nWhether it was the Shagari and Awolowo of the second republic, or Zik and
\nBalewa of first. Abiola and Tofa of third republic or even Tinubu and
\nFunsho Williams of fourth republic. All were not free and fair, in the
\ntrue sense of the phrase. I still remember that Funsho Williams was
\nleading in Lagos Guber polls after 18 LGAs were announced in 2003. Until
\nIkorodu and Epe results, conveniently delayed, came in. Kuforoji, the main
\npolitical leader in Ikorodu eventually became Lagos Speaker.
\nThe fact that political players who can compromise the system, do
\ncompromise it is not incredible. The benefits are enormous. What is rather
\namazing is that the people who bear the brunt of all these shenanigans
\naccept the results of these polls. And don’t even audit the process or
\ndemand for credible improvement.
\nThere are myriads of ways our polls are rigged. The most popular, but
\nactually least effective, is paying voters for votes. This was very common
\nin this last election.
\nThere is also the unauthorized access to ballot materials, prior to
\nelection. This is also common in Nigeria. And the general public don’t
\nrealise how easily it can be done.
\nThe there is the ubiquitous ballot snatching and stuffing.
\nThere is the result hijacking enroute to collation.
\nNow that we use electronic voting machine for accreditation, there are
\nmany ways it can still be rigged. Simply removing the battery and spare
\nfor the machine in areas you intend to rig renders the machine useless.
\nAnd incident form is no panacea, as you can bring as many people as
\npossible to bear the names on the register and vote for you. This was done
\nmassively in last general election, in many parts of the country.
\nThe EVS can also be perviously technically tinkered with, so that it will
\nfail to capture some people. This is done in your opponent’s stronghold,
\nwith stern instructions to your agents to insist on EVS being used. This
\nonly leads to acrimony, and delays. The outcome is mainly the dispersal of
\nmany potential voters.
\nA competent programmer surreptitiously employed, and given access to the
\nEVS can tweak the software for selected machines to be sent to your
\nopponent’s stronghold. There it will misrecord the registered voters, so
\nthat total actual ballots will exceed the registered voters. Thereby
\nleading to cancellation.
\nAnd many more ways!
\nThe purpose of outlining some of the rigging antics is to show Nigerians
\nwe are supposed to demand post election audits! It’s not enough for losing
\ncandidates to go to tribunal, with inadequate evidence.
\nHowever it will be more effective if we demand more dependable electoral
\nprocess. Many countries have faced this our current electoral challenges.
\nAnd found a credible way forward. We also need to. Nigeria deserves a
\nbetter electoral process.
\nWe need a system that gives us credible outcomes. Such system should have
\nthree qualities:
\n1. It should keep digital tallies of votes cast, stored in the hard drive
\nand memory card. This makes the result almost real time, and more
\ndifficult to falsify at collation.
\n2 It should print paper ballot of the vote cast, and have a ballot box for
\ncasting. The ballot is actually cast in a ballot box. It helps the voter
\nconfirm that what machine recorded is what he\/she voted. It is also used
\nfor correlation of the digital result.
\n3.It should be able to have a memory you can’t alter. Similar to what you
\nfind in Aircraft’s black box. This acts as a third safeguard. If the three
\ndo not correspond exactly, you know there is compromise.
\nSuch a system is already available, and being used in many countries
\nincluding Venezuela, Belgium, Philippines and Brazil.
\nThe Venezuelan voting process is rated as one of the most efficient in the
\nworld. It’s a simple system that embraces all three criteria mentioned
\nabove, and has been adopted by Philippines. Results are almost real time.
\nAnd now voter turnout in these two countries are about the highest in the
\nworld. Because credibility has been restored to their electoral process.
\nNigeria needs same. The people need to start making credible demand for
\nthe change we need. Our electoral process is still highly compromised. If
\nwe don’t rescue it, we can’t start the journey to restoration.
\nIt’s not just an,opposition party problem. It’s a national problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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