Nigeria’s upcoming General Elections is just around the corner. According to the website of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, General Elections are scheduled to hold on Saturday 18th February, 2023 nationwide. However, before that day, a couple of bye-elections and governorship polls are expected to have been conducted, notable among them is the Anambra State Gubernatorial Election.
Before the 2023 General Elections, however, it is believed, and expected, that the INEC is already fine-tuning its preparations and putting all necessary things in place to ensure that the next round of elections is better organized compared to the previous ones. As well, a handful of politicians are already strategizing, aligning and re-aligning in order to give themselves the best chance of winning tickets of their various parties and ultimately contesting for their desired positions in government.
Meanwhile, some questions remain on the minds and lips of Nigerians: “Would this next General Election be free and fair?”, “Can INEC get it right this time?”, “Why should I bother to vote when my vote would not count?” This general scepticism among Nigerian electorates is a major factor why we still have low turnout on election day. Nigerians have totally been disenchanted by the crop of political leaders and their choices and actions, particularly as regards conducting a free and fair election that can bring forth the best among the best.
Currently, Nigeria operates an Open-Secret Ballot system of voting during elections. In the not too distant past, we have experimented with other systems, including the Open Ballot and the Secret Ballot systems. However, those apparently did not yield the desired result, hence the tweaking and introduction of the Open-Secret Ballot, and more recently the Electronic Voters Register, Smart Card Readers and the use of Permanent Voters Cards.
In spite of these technological introductions – which have relatively improved the organization and conduct of elections, especially the aspects of data gathering and data warehousing – there is still need for a more robust system which can incorporate these technologies as well as provide for cheaper and faster means of voter registration, real-time, online conduct of elections and instant reporting of election results to every nook and cranny of the country.
Now the salient question on one’s mind is can we upgrade to conducting elections using newer but cheaper technologies such as the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) and touchscreen technology, perhaps. The USSD, for instance has been successfully deployed by various government bodies including the Lagos State Government for verification of COVID-19 PCR test results, by the Vehicle Inspection Service (VIS) to track MOT vehicle registration status, and by the Nigeria Insurers Association (NIA) to help motorists verify the authenticity of their Auto Insurance Certificates. Indeed, the Ghanaian Electoral Commission recently deployed USSD for the registration of voters before and during their last elections, and it was massively considered a success.
I believe Nigeria can take it a notch further by actually developing a program or system that allows for USSD in combination with the National Identity Number (NIN) to deploy a fail-proof system that ensures a massive improvement in how elections are organized in Nigeria.
If this system is deployed right and is indeed fail-proof, some of the possible benefits are:
- Voter accreditation is achieved much easier, cheaper and faster.
- Quick and easy voting by voters from the comfort of their homes or offices.
- Elimination of multiple registration and double voting as the system can only recognize and accept a single occurrence of the unique number (NIN?) assigned to each eligible registered voter.
- Vote counting is automated, and therefore instant.
- Election results are automatically and electronically collated and updated onto a central portal where they can be easily assessed.
- Maximum transparency is ensured.
- Elimination of voter disenfranchisement as Nigerians from all nooks and cranny of the country and in diaspora can equally participate, provided they have first been registered and accredited.
- Incidences of election manipulation and rigging would be minimized or even eliminated completely.
- Funds invested to deploy these technologies are a small fraction of total savings to be derived from the discard of the old system, which was cost-heavy and time-consuming.
Now, obviously, it is already too late in the day for this new technology, if feasible, to be used in the next rounds of elections in 2023. However, we must make concerted efforts to learn lessons from the upcoming 2023 elections – as we must have from the past ones – and put the right technology in place before the year 2027, which by the way, is not too far ahead.
In the meantime, we have to make the best of the voting system we currently have by registering to vote, making the right choices among political aspirants, coming out to vote on election day, and ensuring that our votes are counted and the results generally represent the wishes of the majority.
Armstrong A.
08022490067
andrew.mymail3@gmail.com
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