The Many Sins of INEC

In the run-up to the 2023 elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) promised to deliver to Nigerians ‘the best elections ever‘. The backbone of this promise was to be its implementation of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and INEC Election Result Viewing Portal (IReV) technologies, two revolutionary tools that the commission swaggered would address the problems of overvoting and delays in result transmission. Yet, more than a month since Bola Tinubu was declared the winner, Nigerians still remain divided over the results, with different camps claiming purported victor y for the first and second runners-up, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, respectively. The 25 February election was the most keenly contested since 1979 so some dispute was to be expected. However, INEC’s performance left more to be desired, with logistical disruptions in certain regions forcing polls to remain open a day after election day, reports of violence and voter suppression in notable hotspots like Lagos and Rivers, and some results still yet to be uploaded more than a month after election day. Furthermore, it took INEC an agonizing six days to collate and process results before announcement, the most of any election since 1999. Simply put, INEC’s performance can be described as subpar at best and, at worst, outright shoddy. But first, it is important we properly frame INEC’s preparedness for this year’s elections, so as to fairly assess the commission’s delivery.

INEC’S RUN-OFF AND CHALLENGES WITH E-VOTING

Since INEC introduced the Permanent Voters’ Card (PVC) in the 2015 elections, Nigerian elections have become increasingly influenced by e-voting innovations. However, the 2022 Electoral Act was primed to take this trend to another level. Empowered by Section 41 of the Act, INEC opted for the BVAS as the sole means for voter accreditation and results transmission. Also, Section 3 of the Act mandated the federal government to release funds for the election at least one year prior leading to the commission receiving the bulk of its projected N305 billion fund by March 2022. Thus, for the first time in its history, INEC was able to print ballots and other election materials locally while also finalizing the acquisition of its BVAS machines months before election day.

Summarily, INEC was given all the tools needed to pass its own self-designed test to deliver this year’s elections credibly through technology. However, this lavish resource did not translate directly into electoral credibility. Some might argue this was due to the commission’s lack of experience with e-voting technologies, and indeed, INEC has made a similarly weak case. Nigeria can be considered a frontrunner in electoral technology globally. According to International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Nigeria is one of eight African countries and one of 47 nations globally that uses technology for voter identification. While foreign experts might have praised INEC’s technological viewpoint on electoral integrity, this appreciation should not be mistaken for association. In fact, electoral technology is rarely used in the developed world with only two countries in Europe currently using biometric data for voter identification at polling stations. The comparative figure in Africa is 20.

This should come as no surprise. Underdeveloped countries have higher incidence rates of electoral malpractice and irregularities, hence the need for technological means to reduce the avenue for corruption. Electoral technologies are also rather expensive to implement, hence their lack of favor in more developed countries. INEC, for example, spent almost 40 per cent of its N305 billion budget on ICT fittings.

But above all else, the most prominent argument against electoral technology is how susceptible it can be to software security threats and its tendency to be opaque. Though it reduces the likelihood of brutish exploitation, its sophisticated nature truncates the understanding of the process by a diverse electorate, making a breach of trust more likely. And this was exactly what happened with INEC in February’s elections. But first, let us consider INEC’s positives from 25 February, as few as they may be.

INEC’S HALF BVAS

Pre-elections, BVAS was never without its shortcomings, most of which have been thoroughly explored. To INEC’s credit, it worked on addressing some of these challenges. For example, prior to 2023, BVAS struggled with voter accreditation and result transmission in areas with poor network coverage, mainly due to the voters’ register being on INEC servers. To tackle this challenge in this election, INEC created an online-offline mode for BVAS, effectively eliminating the network challenge. Basically, BVAS were preloaded with voters’ registers per polling unit to facilitate offline accreditation. They were also made capable of queuing result uploads in areas with poor connectivity, after which they could make automatic uploads of results or voters’ accreditation data once they arrived at the Registration Area Centres (RAC), or more generally, areas with better coverage.

However, though BVAS fared reasonably well with voter accreditation, this is only half the tale, or more aptly, half its job. The results transmission was another story entirely, which would begin to describe the Commission’s failures in the presidential elections.

FEVERISH IREV PERFORMANCE

Prior to 25 February, all eyes were on the BVAS, with little or no attention being paid to the INEC’s IReV. How many servers does INEC have for its IReV? What is the strength and capacity of these servers? What measures have been taken to protect them from cyber attacks? How is the system tested and audited before and after the election to ensure its reliability and accuracy? These are questions virtually no one thought to ask, and as a corollary, the commission failed to provide the answers to them.

INEC simply made overly optimistic promises of instant result transmission using the IReV and seemingly had the pretext to back their claims. In all previous use cases—Anambra, Ekiti, and Osun—result transmission was mostly seamless. Also, a few weeks before the election, they conducted a mock accreditation exercise in 436 polling units, which by many accounts was described as a success. However, these could only serve as a paltry simulation environment when compared with Nigeria’s 176,846 polling units, which would be the typical election workload. This left INEC grossly unprepared and poignantly devoid of trust from the Nigerian electorate on election day.

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The Many Sins of INEC

INEC’S RUN-OFF AND CHALLENGES WITH E-VOTING

INEC’S HALF BVAS

FEVERISH IREV PERFORMANCE

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