Mike Igini is a former Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC). In this interview with AYO ESAN, he speaks on the recent Election Tribunal’s judgment in Osun State, the effectiveness of the Bimodal Voter Registration System (BVAS) and the forthcoming elections, among other issues of national importance. Excerpts:
How will you react to the series of attacks on the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC‘s facilities across the country, most especially, in the South East?
It is most unfortunate that citizens of a country would attack offices of an election management body responsible for the conduct of elections in our country. Those attacks are basically attacks on our democracy. This is unacceptable.
The security agencies have the responsibilities to deal with that. And basically for me, what I see happening is not of course new, all of us know this, even though a bad example is not a good example. Clearly it is evidence of lack of intelligence. Were there to be an effective intelligence system within the various security agencies, there is no way some of these things would not have been foiled. This is because from all that we know, in years back, when we had a good intelligence system, there was no way a group of people would attack INEC facilities, not once, not twice, across several places without detecting those people; either when they were in hotels, gatherings, and all that. Nobody was speaking or talking about such information.
So when we used to have good security personnel that used to mix up with the people in restaurants, bars, motor parks, and all that, it would be easy to get all this information.
Unfortunately, that does not seem to be happening right now. However, those attacks which as I told you have been longstanding, back in history; 2003,2007, for the index Years , 2011,2015 including 2019 would all not stop INEC from conducting the elections because INEC has what is called rational plan and also emergency plan, that would always be deployed while I was there and it is still there. So, Nigerians should get prepared for the election irrespective of what is going on.
But in case INEC is unable to conduct the elections, what is the position of the law?
Well, of course, if there is inability on the part of INEC to conduct an election in any polling unit or even in a Ward, of course, it would have to be postponed to the next day.
The introduction of BVAS has given Nigerians the hope that the coming elections will be free and fair. But the recent judgment in Osun State where there were claims of over voting made people to start panicking, that even the introduction of BVAS may not prevent election rigging. How will you allay their fears?
Foremost, there is no case of over voting from all the evidence that has been provided, no evidence of over voting.
What is over voting? Section 51 of the current 2022 Electoral Act says that there is an over voting when the total number of votes cast exceeds the total number of accredited persons. Is that what has been referred to in the current uninformed comments about the BVAS? The answer is, ‘No’.
The BVAS integrity remains intact. It has not been repealed by the Tribunal in Osun State. If at the end of the poll, the presiding officer who has the duty to upload the total number of accredited voters unto the Central server failed to do so at the end of the poll, but as designed by the commission in respect to the card readers, it took into account human failings, that will nevertheless, compromise what transpired at the polling units. What do I mean? The BVAS is designed in such a way that, whenever it is idle in the process of the conduct of election, it will on its own send the data to the Central Server. Particularly, the period at the end of the poll when the presiding officer is doing the sorting, and counting of the ballots, entering the scores of the parties into the form EC8A as well as even the accredited numbers , the BVAS on its own, when it is idle, will be sending to the Central server. However, at the end of the poll, when the presiding officer has given the duplicates to the party agents, the final duty of a presiding officer is to ensure that everything has been uploaded.
Now like the example I gave, if at the end of the poll, the total number of accredited voters is 150, now while the BVAS was idle, let say it has sent 100 to the Central Server, 50 will be left in the BVAS, 100 is already at the Central Server.
So, if Mr. James went to the INEC office in Abuja where that thing is domiciled and requested for a certified copy of the report of the total number of accredited voters that have been sent for that election. The first duty of the officer at the INEC is to first and foremost; using this analogy we are using now, to mirror what happened in Osun, would be to first and foremost check whether every data on the BVAS had been totally uploaded. If it has not been fully uploaded and as in this instance that we are using now, let’s say only 100 had been uploaded but on the Form EC8A which has the original, duplicates have been given to the party agents at the polling units, it is 150. What is expected of the officer in charge is to say please, could you come back tomorrow or given another date to come back, so that he could call immediately for those particular BVAS and call the people in the respective locations in the state or anywhere, to say please upload before we proceed.
He would let them know that the total number of accredited voters have not been fully and totally uploaded to the server, and urged them to please do that. But if at the time the applicant makes the request and he has been told that what we have in this instance now is only 100 or you don’t even say hundred but said it is not completed but he was insisting and said that he needed to file his petition.
What the officer ought to do administratively is to mark that report as ‘Interim’. He needs to mark it as ‘Interim’ because when he marks it as ‘Interim’ that pending the addition, aggregation or what we could see yet to be uploaded. Now, if eventually, you called that to be done and insisted that what was still left should be added to the 100, how many will that give to you? It will give you 150 accredited which tallies with what you have on the Form EC8A. Therefore, you cannot say that there is over voting here because the BVAS is the primary source of the validity of the total number of accreditation.
In fact, basically, the manual hardcopy register of voters as well as the central server, they constitute what you called secondary source or sources but the primary source is the BVAS.
To close my thoughts now, we are talking about Osun. I must say this here. We are aware; we have seen and read about the existence of three reports. The three reports in respect to the total number of accredited voters. The first one was the one that was not complete which ought to have been indicated by the commission, it ought to have said so abinitio, by way of a written evidence that this is an ‘interim’, but that was not done. When the alarm was raised, a call was made to where those BVAS were domiciled and they directed to please upload what was left.
When that was uploaded , you now have 150, using our figure in this interview which is now the second report.
Now when at the court, the court now requested on the order of the court, that look go and bring the BVAS. The BVAS that were now brought, that were now physically examined and you could see it there, eventually showed 150 and 150 tallies with Form EC8A but however different from the original incomplete one.
Now the court was now left with the discretion to choose out of the three reports. But the point that must be emphasized is that the three reports emanated from only one source, that is the BVAS
What can you say about the integrity of BVAS as we go into the general election in a few days ?
A country that is about to embark on a general election and you have a situation where the major tools and technology to be deployed for the conduct of election of such magnitude, suddenly there is doubt that is cast on its integrity, it is one that requires the intervention of all who know what the technology is about, to defend. That is my interest in this whole thing. Because over ten years, even before I came to the INEC and before leaving, my interests have always been in the process. That if the process is credible, the outcome will be accepted by the people without fuss. So my preoccupation with the intervention I have been having in the last few days following the many lies that are being told about the BVAS is the reason why I decided to tell the truth about the BVAS, so that people’s morale is not dampened.
So that people’s confidence is not shaken about a technology; a device that we have used to conduct over 100 or so elections.
The Osun election makes it over 105 elections that we have used the technology for. It has been under pilot in several by- elections and a number of off-season elections before even the 2022 Act was signed on the 25th of February 2022. This is to tell you the journey that this BVAS has travelled, the mileage it has covered. And so go into election in less than 24 days and suddenly people are saying things that are not true. Even things that the Tribunal didn’t say. The Tribunal didn’t say what most of what people are talking about. It therefore requires clarification and a clarion call to Nigerians to disregard in its entirety all the wrong things that are being said about the BVAS.
The BVAS is a technology that has been used to put the Nigerian people at the centre of electoral democracy and put the candidates at the periphery on Election Day.
With your experience as a former INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner and looking at the preparation of the commission, are you optimistic of a credible election this year?
Let me say this, hope belongs only to the living. In moments of despair, people should not dissolve into despair but should resolve to hold on to hope. And in crisis moments like this, hope is the only battle cry of any leader.
Based on concrete, realisable template, it shows clearly that our challenges of today will take us to a promising tomorrow. Therefore, my optimism is based on the fact that provisions of our Electoral Act that have been used to rig elections for over 20 years; that we have fought, that should be repealed, have now been repealed, after 20 years of the battle. This is evident in our 2022 Electoral Act that has secured innovation for INEC like the BVAS, the INEC result viewing portal, that were all designed to deal with the challenges of election rigging and election service delivery in our country. Therefore, Nigerians should be hopeful and should be optimistic, optimistic about what a collective people can achieve if they are determined, which is natural to human beings.
Never before have I been as hopeful as I am today about what is coming ahead of Nigeria. Power is back to the Nigerian people. The design efforts made over the years is to put Nigerian people at the centre of our electoral democracy so that on election day, candidates will now be at the periphery while the people will be at the centre to determine who becomes what . This is why I am hopeful. I am optimistic. And if you may share this optimism with me, that will be very good.
Will you believe this is our country that in less than 24 days to the election, everywhere is calm. Unlike in the previous years, we do not have elections – related tension that we used to have before. I don’t know whether you observe that yourself. This is because Nigerians have made up their minds. They are determined more than ever before. Many Nigerians have now returned back to the country and most of them registered to vote during the election. That is, they will keep date with history on the 25th of February and on the 11th of March 2023 respectively. And for me, it is good luck to all of us.
About the Author
AYO ESAN, has been actively reporting and analyzing political events for different newspapers for over 18 years. He has also successfully covered national and state elections in Nigeria since the inception of this democracy in 1999.
