Card reader: The cart before the horse?

VARIOUS key stakeholders in the political space of the country have begun preparations towards the 2019 general election. KUNLE ODEREMI revisits the controversy that trailed the deployment of Smart Card Reader during the 2015 elections and move by the National Assembly to legitimise the process through an amendment of the Electoral Act.

OPINIONS are divided on the decision by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to announce the election timetable for the 2019 elections as it is believed to be a break from the past, when it took the commission a longer time to unfold it.

Some stakeholders are curious that there was more to the timely release of the election timetable. To them, the INEC action was part of the diversionary tactics and design of the establishment on critical issues concerning the quality of governance against the high expectations of the electorate that propelled millions of Nigerians to vote for change. Such critics argue that the midterm scorecard of the governing party as it approaches the last leg of a four-year tenure is blighted in red.

Other analysts, however, perceive the release of the time table as being in tandem with tradition in advanced democracies, as it would allow other main actors ample time to fine-tune strategies and guarantee due process and diligence.

Both the 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act are critical to the conduct of every major election in the country. The importance of these documents is underscored by the latest amendments carried out by the Senate, which appear to have attracted less interrogation by members of the political class, whose activities have direct bearing to the fundamental provisions in the amendments.

INEC’s plan to deploy Smart Card Readers for the purpose of the 2015 election had provoked a heated and prolonged public discourse, with the preponderance of the criticism and opposition coming from the main political parties and their leading gladiators. The seeming quarrel over the matter had created so much tension because of the insistence of the INEC leadership that the decision to use card readers for the election was irreversible. It maintained that the deployment of the card reader was to ensure a credible, transparent, free and fair election in order to deepen Nigeria’s electoral democracy. Part of the contention then was that the machine would restore or boost public confidence in the nation’s election process and indeed, democracy because most desperate politicians who believed in winning at all cost would be put in check.

Those that antagonised the introduction of the technology, nonetheless, had argued that the system posed a grave danger to the conduct of a credible poll. The card readers, according to the commission, was equipped with backup batteries, just as it said the card reader could relay data on voters to a central server enabling analysis of the votes from each polling point.

Despite the confidence of INEC, the card readers malfunctioned in a lot of places during the 2015 elections across the country. There was undue delay in the accreditation process. It rejected permanent voter’s card (PVC) of many, as it failed to capture the biometrics from finger tips. The other hiccups include irregular capturing and fast battery drainage, such that INEC officials had to embark on frantic actions to make up for the lapses. They took the machine to their office for proper configuration, though INEC officials still had to resort to the use of manual process for accreditation. However, there were reports that the directive came too late to most states and local government areas, hence the decision of the INEC to extend accreditation of voters to the next day in those areas. This was despite the fact that huge resources were used for the elections, a sum including N120 billion expenditure; 750,000 ad-hoc election staff with over 360,000 security personnel.

In its amendment of the Electoral act, the Senate said it was conscious of the wide ranging reservations that surrounded the adoption of the Card Reader during the last general election in the country it explained that its action was also based on calls by stakeholders for its modification to cater for the lapses rather than disband it.  It also took cognizance of the verdict of the Supreme Court which indicated that the Card Reader was not backed by law, thus the amendment of Section 49 of the Electoral Act, which in

(1A) reads: “A person intending to vote in an election shall present himself with his voter’s card to a Presiding Officer for accreditation at the polling unit in the constituency in which his name is registered.”

49(2) states that “The Presiding Officer shall use a Smart Card Reader or any other technological device that may be prescribed from time to time for the accreditation of voters, to verify or authenticate- (A)  the genuineness or otherwise of the Voter’s card; (B) that the Voter’s Card presented by the voter is registered at the polling unit in the Constituency in which the card is presented; (C) the biometric connection or otherwise of the intending voter with the voter’s card; and (D) the number of duly accredited voters in the polling unit.”

Section 49(4) of the new law indicates that where the Card Reader fails, the Presiding Officer, being satisfied of the genuineness of the Voter’s card register a person to vote provided that the number of persons with such challenges does not exceed 10 percent of the total number of registered voters. If the number of persons with such incidents however exceeds 10 percent of the registered voters, the law provides that the election be suspended till another day especially if the result from that polling unit may affect the overall result of the Constituency. The Commission is empowered to conduct any election suspended in relation to subsection 4 within seven days of its suspension.

Section 49(6) indicates that subject to subsections 1,2,3 and 4 of the above section, “the Presiding Officer shall, upon confirming that the intending voter’s name is on the Register of Voters, him with a ballot paper and record by ticking on the Register of Voters that the intending voter, having been accredited to vote in the particular election.”

The law further provides that the number of intending voters ticked for accreditation shall not be inconsistent with the intending voters accredited under subsections (3) and (4) of this section. In section 49(8), the law provides that at the end of accreditation of voters, the Presiding Officer shall instantly transmit the total number of intending voters accredited to vote with all other voters accreditation data already captured in subsection (3) and (4)  by secured mobile electronic communication. The data are expected to be transmitted to: (a) collation centre at each level of collation to which the polling unit belongs in the constituency where election is held; and (b) Central database of the Commission kept at the National Headquarters of the Commission.”

At the time the INEC came up with the Card Reader, critics had faulted the action on a number of grounds mostly based on the laws establishing the Commission and guiding its operational activities. They opined that the INEC was going beyond its powers by tactically adopting electronic voting. The commission is established under Section 153 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended). Under paragraph 15 of Part 1 of the Third Schedule to the 1999 Constitution (as amended), its primary assignment is to organise, undertake and supervise all elections, as well as conduct the registration of persons qualified to vote and prepare, maintain and revise the registration of voters for the purpose of any election.  It is also mandated to carry out the functions conferred upon it by virtue of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended).  Similarly, Section 16 of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended) empowers the INEC to cause to design, print and control the issuance of voter card to the electorate on the voter register.

But, the constitutionality of the INEC on the Smart Card Reader was subject to the Section 52 of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended) which prohibited electronic voting. Those who felt the commission was on the right track over the action said there was a clear demarcation between the voting procedure outlawed by Section 52 from the authentication process, which they claim that the SCR seeks to achieve.

This, according to them, was because the said provision merely regulates electronic voting, not electronic devices such as the card reader, which authenticates the identity of a voter by verifying that his fingerprints match the biometrics stored on the embedded chip of his or her Permanent Voter Card.  One individual said concerning the adoption of the machine that, “An in-depth study of electronic voting reveals that in countries where remote electronic voting is used, the personal attendance of a voter at a voting centre is not necessarily required as he/she is able to vote from a different location electronically. This is not the case with the SCR.

Therefore, on a closer look at section 52(1) (a) and (b), it would appear that a card reader is not an electronic voting machine but merely a system put in place to curb electoral fraud and impersonation. It also reduces the possibility of results from a polling unit being liable to nullification and voidance.”

Agitations among stakeholders

The agitation against the use of the card spread across the country with some non-political groups joining the fray. For instance, members of the Middle Belt Concerned Youths (MBCY) stormed the INEC headquarters in Abuja on March 11, 2015, barricading the road leading to the commission, carrying placards with inscriptions demanding the immediate resignation or sack of Professor Attahiru Jega, for insisting on the use of card readers for the elections.

Some of them read: “Jega, why the underage registration of voters in Northern Nigeria? Jega, resign now, it seems you are not getting it right, Jega is test-running the future of Nigerians with the election, Voting is our legitimate right and we must vote.” The leader of the group, Yunusa Yusuf, described the card readers as a monumental fraud, stressing: “We are (here) today to register our dissatisfaction over the failure of the PVC card reader machine….The question therefore is, what happens if the battery fails during the election proper, especially in the rural areas….In as much as we appreciate the steadfastness and enormous innovations introduced by INEC to bequeath free and fair elections to the nation, it is still the contention of majority of Nigerians that such efforts must not be sacrificed on the altar of a fool-hardy insistence of proceeding with the use of PVCs, despite the glaring imperfections inherent in them. Insisting on using them for the elections will only end up disenfranchising a huge segment of Nigeria’s voting population,” he said.

But, the then main opposition APC had accused the PDP of colluding with some 15 ‘portfolio political parties’ to stop the use of card readers for the election by threatening to boycott it and use a legal process to prevent use of the machine.  “Nigerians have sacrificed all they can to obtain their PVCs, which are now their most-prized possession. They have also hailed the plan by INEC to use the card reader to give Nigeria credible polls. Only dishonest politicians, those who plan to rig, those who have engaged in a massive purchase of PVCs and those who have something to hide are opposed to use of the machine. For the avoidance of doubt, our party is ready for any tool, including the card reader that will ensure that the votes of Nigerians will count in the election. In this regard, we sincerely hope that the nationwide tests of the card reader to be carried out this week by INEC will not be sabotaged by those opposed to the machine. The card reader has been demonstrated to work, including at the Senate, and no one must come out to tell Nigerians anything to the contrary,” the APC stated.

In spite of the INEC’s assurances that it had achieved a hundred percent success in its objective of verifying the authenticity of PVC’s presented by voters during a pre-election mock demonstrations held in 12 states, only 57 per cent of voters could authenticate their fingerprints.  Similarly, in the Presidential elections on March 28, the failure of the card reader in some polling units eventually led to INEC allowing manual accreditation.  Although, only 450 card readers out of 150,000 reportedly failed, there had been concerns up to the run up of the elections as to whether the card readers should be used in crucial elections such as the presidential and gubernatorial elections without first being tested in smaller by-elections. However, the then Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, Mr Kayode Idowu, had blamed the hiccups in some instances during the mock exercise on the non-removal of the protective film thereby making it difficult in some instances and impossible in others for the machine to detect thumbprints.

The PDP through the Director General of the PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, Dr Ahmadu Ali, had also stridently criticised the deployment of card readers because of fear that it was sustainable because of the infrastructural deficit in the country. He advised the INEC to have a Plan ‘B.’ He said: “There are also reports that the PVC readers are not fully tested. How can INEC handle cases of faulty card readers? Do they have a credible plan B in situation where voters line up and the card readers refuse to work? Ballot boxes are reportedly inadequate. Adequate training of INEC’s staff for the election had not been concluded as well as other problems confronting INEC.” His fear was made manifest during the poll as the then President Goodluck Jonathan, the presidential candidate of the PDP in the poll, and his wife, Patience, came face to face with the inherent anomalies in the system.

After several failed attempt with five card reader machines that read his thumbprint, Jonathan and his wife were eventually issued with Incident Form for accreditation. A similar scenario played out in Enugu, necessitating a call by the deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, on INEC to jettison the use of SCRs for the polls after he could not secure accreditation with the machine. “The card reader is not functioning optimally. It has made accreditation slow and stressful. The INEC did not listen to our advice. This card reader should have been tried in a bye-election or supplementry election before a major election as this. INEC should immediately discard it and allow everybody who presents his PVC to be accredited and vote. The card reader is not recognised by the Electoral Act. It is not in our Constitution. I and my wife had to be accredited manually.”

Following the widespread failure of the card reader machines, Professor Attahiru Jega, changed the guidelines in the conduct of the election on March 28 and approved the use of manual accreditation in areas that the Smart Card Readers malfunctioned during the Presidential and National Assembly elections in the country. In a statement issued while the election was ongoing the INEC said: “Even though the guidelines for the 2015 general election provide that where card readers fail to work and cannot be replaced, elections in such PUs will be postponed to the next day. The scale of the challenge we have observed has necessitated a reconsideration of the provision of the guidelines. The Commission has therefore decided that in PUs where card readers fail to work, the Presiding Officer shall manually accredit voters. The Presiding Officer shall mark the voters register upon being satisfied that the person presenting PVC is the owner.”

Experience from other lands

It was no surprise that the introduction of card readers suffered serious setback in Nigeria, given the experiences of countries like Kenya and Ghana on the African continent. For instance, it caused delays in the general election held in Kenya in 2013. It was the presidential, federal and provincial legislative and governorship elections, all held in one day. With grant from the Canadian government, the Kenya electoral body had designed an electronic register with the aim of capturing the biometrics of voters so that the results of the elections would be transmitted by special telephones from every polling unit direct to the collation centre in Nairobi, the nation’s capital. The system reportedly crumbled on the day of polling, fuelling public outrage.

Chief Oladosu Oladipo, who is the national coordinator of the Yoruba Patriots Movement (NPM), said he does not subscribe to the deployment of cards readers. “No, I do not. National identity card from the National Identification Registration Office with on-line verification at Polling Centre is the panacea to eliminating electoral fraud or reducing it to the barest minimum. Surveillance camera placed at strategic locations to monitor criminals and bad boys engaged by fraudulent politicians that want to thwart the sovereign power of the people to elect people of their choice to power to govern them in accordance with the existing laws and the Constitution of the land.”

However, Professor Michael Oni, Head of Department, Political Science and Administration of the Babcock University acquiesced to the amendment of the Senate to the effect that card readers should be part of the nation’s electoral system. Relying on the experience of the country during elections over the years, he said: “Yes, I subscribe to the use of card reader. I have conducted a comparison of the 2011 and 2016 presidential elections, a difference of two million votes. Again, I did this across states and along geopolitical zones. It checked multiple voting.”

No doubt, the debate on the desirability or otherwise of the card reader during the 2019 elections may have just begun, as some critical stakeholders believe the action of the Senate is akin to putting the cart before the horse.