Nigerian electronic voting debate intensifies as analyst argues technology cannot guarantee free and fair elections without moral reform

“Men at some times are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings… ” – Cassius to Brutus in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

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I dare to say that it is not the absence of laws that has denied Nigeria free and fair elections. We have a surfeit of laws that should have guaranteed that we always have credible elections.

In other words, the fault is not in the absence of laws – or the inadequacy of laws – it is in us the people that implement the laws.

The fault, dear compatriots, is not in our laws but in ourselves that we have been unable to organise free and fair elections!

What have we not tried? Cardreaders gulped billions of Naira, but it failed us, and we discarded them.

Perhaps, it is better to say we were the ones that failed card-readers! What works fantastically well in other places fails woefully here.

The fault is not in the system or technology – it is us, its users and manipulators. Billions of Naira went down the drains with the card readers.

We shifted to BVAS. Billions of Naira again went into its procurement.

We were told, just as we had been told with card-readers – that BVAS was the magic wand that would give us credible elections.

Again, BVAS failed us! Or, better still, we failed BVAS – just like we failed its elder brother called card-readers. Billions of Naira again went down the drains.

Lest I forget, there was iRev! Did it work here?

Now we are being told that
electronically-transmitted election results are the panacea to election irregularities in this country.

Once elections are electronically-transmitted, Eureka! This is another lie from the pit of hell!

Will election results electronically transmit themselves or it is human beings that will still transmit the results? Will electronic gadgets operate by themselves or will people still operate them? Are we going to manufacture or mint new and fresh people to man the gadgets or the same Nigerians that you and I know too well are those that will still man and operate the gadgets? Are we, like the Dangote refinery, going to India to import people who will man the electronic gadgets and manage our elections for us?

We are adept at telling ourselves lies, like the proverbial ostrich that hides only its head in the sand while its rump remains exposed.

We run away from our problems and chase shadows. No amount of gadgets will give us free and fair elections. We will only end up wasting billions of Naira again.

Every election cycle, some people smile their way to the bank while Nigerians eager to have free and fair elections gnash their teeth and bemoan their circumstance.

No gadgets will deliver credible elections to Nigerians.

Only Nigerians can deliver credible elections unto themselves. Unfortunately, Nigerians, as I perceive them today, are not wired to deliver credible elections to themselves.

The protests and placard-carrying by those yelling for electronically-transmitted election results are mere roadshows and election campaign gambits.

It is just another charade of those who leave the substance to chase shadows. If and after the 2027 elections are transmitted electronically and nothing has changed, you will say I said so!

Is it not Nigeria? This same Nigeria that we all know like the back of our hands? The integrity of elections – or the absence of it – is directly proportional to the integrity or absence of it in many stakeholders involved in the electoral process.

Electoral laws, important as they are, are not the only factors responsible for, or contributing to the success of elections. Equally important – in fact, more important – are the roles played and the actions taken by politicians, the voters themselves, the election umpire, the security agencies, and, wait for it, the judges who adjudicate in election disputes.

For instance, can electronically-transmitted election results prevent judges from entering the same kind of judgment they delivered in Kogi state (involving Yahaya Bello) or in Imo state (involving Hope Uzodinma)?

Like a woman lacking in good character who bemoans what she describes as her ill-luck in choosing a good husband, Nigerians, having lost all morals, complain about the inadequacy of laws! Yet, the best election ever conducted in this country was the simplest – and, possibly, the cheapest!

The Option A4 that produced the June 12, 1993 presidential election between MKO Abiola and Bashir Tofa was conducted with voters simply queuing in front of the poster of their preferred candidate.

And Nigerians as well as the international community agreed that the election was not only free and fair – and the freest and fairest ever in Nigeria – but also credible by all international standards.

No card readers. No BVAS. No iRev. No electronically-transmitted results.

The simplicity of that election must have saved the country billions of Naira.

That election ought to have taught us useful lessons.

Nigerians generally were tired of ruinous military rule and desperately wanted an escape route out of it.

A return to democracy, civil or civilian rule was seen as the most viable option.

But 26/27 years down the road, have the civilians creditably discharged themselves? If a referendum or opinion poll is conducted today, will you be surprised if a large number of Nigerians are despondent about civilian rule?

MKO Abiola had a message, which resonated with the people.

Farewell to poverty! And his roadmap to achieving it at the earliest possible time – he gave himself six months in the first instance – appeared credible to the people.

Since 1999, what can anyone point at as the message of our successive leaders that has fired the imagination and stoked the nationalistic fervour of the people?

Abiola’s larger-than-life personality was also something else. He nearly won a pan-Nigeria mandate; only in the south-east did he badly trail his opponent.

Governmental failure since 1999 has led to political apathy, such that a preponderance of Nigerians do not care whether there are elections or not – not to talk of them being free and fair! With the weaponization of poverty, many of those who still go out to vote do so to collect the peanuts that politicians dole out to buy votes.

Now, will electronically-transmitted results stop vote-selling and vote-buying? Will electronically-transmitted results ensure internal democracy in the political parties? Will electronically-transmitted results put an end to the godfather/godson syndrome, the like of which has made Rivers state ungovernable in the past few years?

Before anyone will say that I am against electronically-transmitted election results, let me say categorically that I am not! What I am only saying is that, that, in itself, will not deliver credible or guarantee free and fair elections.

The problems bedevilling credible elections here precede the actual casting, counting, recording of votes and announcement of election results.

Most, if not all, of the political parties lack internal democracy. So, godfathers, instead of party members, decide who stands for election.

From that very foundation, free choice is impaired.

The best candidates are seldom presented to the electorate. Whatever choice made afterwards by the voters is, therefore, stunted right from the word “go.”

And whether or not we electronically-transmit results, voters do not have the last say on election matters. The courts and judges do!

In a 1787 letter, Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd president of the United States of America, was quoted as saying: “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

While we can interpret that statement to mean a strong advocacy for freedom of speech – and it sure is – I can also recoin it thus: Were I to choose between an electoral process full of morals without laws and that full of laws without morals, I will not hesitate a moment to choose the former.

On a trip to Germany in 1994 at the invitation of the German government, my guide, a university professor, told me the percentage of Germans who would willingly do the right thing without anyone compelling them was between 85 and 87 percent.

Yet, she said they were still trying to do some catching up with the Scandinavian countries where the same percentage hovered around 97 percent.

Whaaoh! She waited for me to catch my breath before adding that the vagrant 3 percent was usually accounted for largely by immigrants! Racism? Not quite! Reality that we are well familiar with!

Elections run seamlessly in some countries. Not the bloody battles that we witness here. And at a fraction of the humongous costs we incur here. But what should anyone expect?

Terrorism and banditry, kidnapping and ransom-taking, criminal activities and politics are the most lucrative businesses around here these days. There is no consequence for bad behaviour.

Everyone wants quick and easy money.

The prayers that receive the loudest “Amen” or “Amin” in places of worship are those that decree little work but big rewards!

Be those in power or the ones angling to replace them, what kind of examples are we giving the younger generations with the kind of leaders we parade?

Clean elections cannot but be a rarity in climes such as ours whether or not we electronically transmit more than election results!

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Interestingly, it is, ultimately, a lose-lose situation for both the beneficiaries of fraudulent elections and its victims!