Interview

Politicians seeking to discredit BVAS will fail —Mike Igini, ex-Akwa-Ibom REC

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2 years ago

A former Resident Electoral Commissioner in Akwa Ibom State, Mike Igini, speaks with SUBAIR MOHAMMED on the integrity of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), Supreme Court judgment in the cases of the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan and Senator Godswill Akpabio and other electoral issues.

The Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, did not participate in the Yobe North senatorial primary of the APC but he was favoured as the candidate of the party by a Supreme Court judgment.. What do you say to this?

A democracy without the rule of law has in it an inner virus that will lead to its death. Any democracy where the political elite or the politicians repudiate or reject the norms on which democracy is practised, such democracy will die.

The recent judgment in respect to Senators Lawan and Akpabio may have sounded the final death knell on our efforts through the Electoral Act 2022 to enthrone internal party democracy.

This decision that has brought disillusionment to members of this political party represents the lowest level of democratic discredit. Political primaries are guided by a composite of laws, the constitution, the electoral act and the regulations of the political parties.

Primary elections, like all other elections, are generic processes that have the constituting elements of announcements for the sale of forms. There is also a period for the close of the sales of forms.

The first question in the light of this judgment is, as of the time of the sale of nomination forms, did these two powerful individuals buy senatorial nomination forms? Did the Supreme Court answer that question?

Secondly, those forms must be submitted to their respective party with a sworn affidavit. Was there a submission by these two individuals and attached sworn affidavit? The answer is no.

The political parties will set up committee to screen political nominees, did these two personalities appear before the party committees and screened as aspirants for senatorial election? The answer is no. At the end of the screening, the names of these individuals were never sent to INEC.

As a matter of fact, everyone saw these two Nigerians when they appeared in Abuja for the presidential screening committee headed by Chief John Odigie-Oyegun.

Now on the day which was on the 27th of May, that was slated for senatorial primaries, were these individuals at the venue where the senatorial primaries were conducted? The answer is no. They were never there.

It is common knowledge to all Nigerians that these two individuals that have now been given the tickets of senatorial election were at all-time presidential aspirants in the primary that took place in June, 2022.

It will be recalled that the timeline for primaries was between March 1 and June 3. This was the timeline. The only one that was shifted was later extended to the 9th of June.

So, senatorial primaries were conducted in May whereas presidential primaries were in June. INEC had the commission’s meeting in Abuja. At the meeting, I got a call from the office in Uyo that there would be senatorial rerun that night and I asked what kind of rerun?

A rerun election was as a result of previously held election cancelled. Who cancelled the senatorial primaries of the 27th? That was a concluded event.

For you to talk about a rerun there should be a 21-day notice for that to happen. The meeting we went for in Abuja was for two days which ended on the 9th. And by Friday morning, we saw what they called breaking news on the social media: ‘Senator Akpabio has now won the rerun election.’ Was there an opening for the sale of new forms? When did Akpabio buy form for the senatorial election?

How could that have happened in the night? And I said, as far as INEC was concerned, Senatorial election has long been concluded. If you are talking about a rerun election, it could only be between those that participated in the annulled or cancelled election. There can’t be a new entrant. These are facts that have been ignored in the position that have been taken by the Supreme Court. They were never candidates for senatorial election.

Is the judiciary inspiring the right confidence in the electorate with this judgment?

Let me say this here, that whether Nigeria democracy will have a hopeful future will depend on what the judiciary does because matters that have been taken to the judiciary, the public has been so disappointed with the outcome.

The judiciary has not done much to be desired when it comes to electoral judgment. The rule of law is usually the first victim of subversion of democracy just as truth is the first casualty in any human conflict. Today, I am pained that the judiciary, my constituency has not been living up to expectation at all.

What do you make of the claim of over-voting in the Osun State governorship election by the states election petition tribunal despite the use of BVAS and its integrity?

Let us be clear, the tribunal did not make any adverse or negative finding against the BVAS per se but on the propriety of three reports of accreditation data and the resultant attempts by people to discredit the BVAS. That is of interest, given that the BVAS will be used in the general election and many Nigerians are worried by what they read on social media that are completely false about BVAS.

As they gang up to tell lies about BVAS, we will say the truth about it. It is the people who are afraid of BVAS and have been opposed to its use in the forthcoming election that are making uninformed comments to discredit the BVAS.

This gross misunderstanding is as a result of the final outcome of the court that returned victory to another person other than the person initially declared as winner. This seem to create doubts and thoughts that BVAS has issues of fidelity and credibility.

However, this notion is wholly and totally incorrect and not true. The integrity of the BVAS is intact. It has no problem. l urge all Nigerians to disregard and reject all such insinuations about this device that is the new sheriff in our electoral process.

Are you saying that the judgment of the tribunal validated the usefulness of BVAS?

Absolutely, the integrity of the BVAS has not been impeached, the tribunal actually affirmed our longstanding efforts to enthrone the principle of one-person-one vote and the value of electoral accountability in the system through the use of the BVAS that allows for meaningful auditing of every vote that must be counted and taken into account to determine the winner of any election now at the polling unit and no longer at results collation centers; either at Wards, LGAs or other levels of collation.

The use of BVAS is a matter of law and procedure as mandated by the 2022 Act and there is no going back on it. There is nothing, absolutely nothing to be worried about about the device, in fact the tribunal itself relied on one of the reports of the BVAS which is the ultimate primary source of ascertaining data of accredited voters, to make its final declaration and that reinforced the integrity and credibility of the BVAS.

Could you explain to Nigerians who are so energized because of the use of BVAS and are gearing up to vote massively yet there are doubts being created by the Osun case over the discrepancies in three reports of accreditation and why should INEC give three reports?

Let me use a sample analogy of what happened in a constituency in Akwa lbom during the 2019 election, as l did on Channels television to answer your question.

The current advanced and more sophisticated and robot, BVAS accreditation and result upload device technology is an offshoot of the smart card reader. Every presiding officer at the end of the poll will sort out the ballot, count and enter total number of votes scored and accredited on the result sheet called Form EC8A, signed by him and countersigned by party agents who are entitled to duplicates of same result.

One very critical duty that the presiding officer must perform is the upload of data from BVAS of the number of accredited voters to the INEC Server.

Meanwhile, the BVAS as designed, whenever it is idle, it will upload accredited data on its own particularly during the period the presiding officer is busy sorting and counting ballot papers.

Thus, if for example, at the end of the poll, there was one hundred and fifty (150) total accredited number but while the BVAS was idle only 100 of that with their unique voters identification number (VIN) had been uploaded, the presiding officer must ensure that the remaining fifty (50) data is pushed (uploaded) into the server.

Where the presiding officer negligently or failed to upload the entire accredited data (150) except the 100 data uploaded by the BVAS when in idle mode, a certified true copy of the accreditation data should not be given at this point until the remaining data of the yet to be uploaded accredited voters (50) are uploaded.

However, where any of the candidates that participated in the election applied and insist on having a certified true copy of the report of what has been uploaded so far from the Server backend in order to file or maintain his petition, any such certified true copy obviously will reflect inchoate accreditation data uploaded while the BVAS was idling, that is, the 100 number instead of 150 which is the final actual total accredited voters on the form EC8A. This gives an erroneous notion of over-voting, which is not true.

That is why such preliminary data report requested for by any candidate ought to be or must be marked by the commission as an ‘interim report’ pending final aggregation, addition or harmonization of outstanding data.

This is necessary because if the physical audit of the BVAS is carried out and the 50 remaining number of accredited data is added, it will be 150 number of accredited voters which tallies with the form EC8A.

This is not over-voting according to section 51 of the 2022 Act that defines over-voting as a situation where the total number of votes cast exceeds total number of accredited voters.

All these controversies would have been avoided if the initial incomplete report from the server which is a secondary source was marked “interim report”. The BVAS is the ultimate primary source of determining any claim of over-voting.

Except the BVAS is destroyed completely, there is nothing anyone can do to manipulate it because it’s designed in a way that evidence trail of every effort to tamper with the memory will show that it was tampered with in an effort to circumvent it. It is not easily manipulated or compromised unlike ordinary hard copy of voters register that anyone can just tick or mark as people who were accredited. It is designed to put the voters at the center of our electoral democracy and the candidates at the periphery of the process on Election Day.

Look, many politicians will be retired by this system as many will suffer the dinosaur experience. Electoral victory and salvation now lies in the hands of the people through their ballots on Election Day. This is the reality of the usefulness of the BVAS that has returned power to the people to determine who govern.

In several interviews, you expressed worries over your constituency, the judiciary, that it should be fearless and courageous. Do you still have concern about its performance?

Yes and frankly I’m not only worried I’m indeed very disturbed over the performance of my constituency when it comes to high profile political matters and the kind of judgments that come from our courts. This is historical and why should that be the case.

Let me be clear here, if the institution of representative democracy will have a hopeful future in Nigeria, it will depend on the role of a fearless and courageous judiciary that will do substantial electoral justice and not technical justice, according to the letters of the law devoid of the spirit of the law.

Given how fearless and courageous the Nigerian judiciary performed under the military when we were under the rule of force, I’m sad and pained that in a civilian era when we are supposed to be under the rule of law, we appear now to be under the rule of men.

The political interest of the elites that have marginalized, exploited, blackmailed and humiliated the judiciary the most are the ones whose interest the judiciary now serves more. The rule of law is preferable to the rule of men no matter how magnanimous. In our own clime, many elites, and not all, are so bad that their thoughts and stomachs are nothing but museum of sorrow.

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