Alluding to the monumental fraud at the election, The Patriots, the body of Nigerian elderstatemen whose chairman was late Rotimi Williams stated thus about the 2003 general elections:
It is wholly unacceptable to allow the result obtained by these well attested electoral malpractices described by the CNPP and also International Electoral Observer Team to stand. To allow them…..will subvert democratic form of government instituted by the constitution and worse still, would entrench elections rigging as a permanent feature of the Nigerian polity.
If the 2003 general elections were full of irregularities, 2007 elections were the one in which different crude and rude methods/attempts were made to thwart the biometric data capturing machines used in voters’ registration in Oyo and Ekiti States.
Efforts at introducing Ict into nigerian electoral process
No doubt, one of the problems facing electoral politics in Nigeria is the falsification of figures through spurious voters’ registration, hence INEC under different leadership, since the beginning of the Republic has tried and still trying to introduce Information Communication Technology (ICT) into electoral politics in Nigeria. In the 2003 general elections, the electoral body introduced biometrics data capturing machine to register voters. The general belief at that time was that the introduction of this modern technology into electoral politics will curb double or multiple registration. This is because every individual has unique personality and identity which cannot be replicated. Even though, some commentators who extolled the virtue of the biometrics data capturing machine then said that “there may be two or more people bearing same name, born in the same village/town/city, local or state and the nation, yet no two people have same finger print identity.
Consequent upon the above thinking, the general belief was that at least when people cannot register more than one time, such could not vote twice. Hence, the introduction of the biometrics was like the restoration of hope into Nigerian electoral politics as the one capable of enhancing and reinforcing democratic government as a people’s wish and aspiration. However, the above logic was frustrated by desperate politicians who would stop at nothing to pollute electoral politics in Nigeria in spite of the introduction of scientific attempt to sanitize the political system. Unfortunately, no sooner the biometric voters registration exercise started than politicians in collusion with both adhoc and regular staff of INEC took the possession of the data capturing machines on alleged cost.
Consequent on this, the data capturing machines were not available at the INEC designated registration centres. With the machines now in the possession of politicians particularly of the ruling party, they engaged in registrations of its members in private homes and depriving the opposition parties members the opportunity to register. Again, it gave undue opportunity to the ruling party to engage in double/multiple registration. Some of these politicians were allegedly assisted by INEC Staff. A popular politician in Ibadan allegedly took the possession of almost half of the data capturing machines to his home and such became the “registration centre”. While this was going on, there were cries across Oyo State that, the machines were not at the registration centres. It took the intervention of the well-meaning Nigerians and security agencies before the machines were rescued and made available to the people. These were the complaints across Nigeria.
At the end of the exercise, INEC conducted fingerprint examination on the purported registered voters and it was found that not less than 6,000,000 multiple registrations were discovered across the country. In the Southwest alone, 1,648,224 voters were disqualified for double registration. These are presented along the states in the geopolitical zones as follows:
Aside these multiple registration, there were other cases of genuine but fraudulently processed registration. The first type was the coercing or encouraging some artisans, market women, some members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and National Road Transport Employers Association (NRTEA) to register. Also, aliens were brought in from neighbouring countries (Cameroun, Niger and Chad) to register as Nigerian electorate. These cards were either collected from them instantly for pecuniary measures or forced them to use it to vote at elections for particular candidates. In the extreme, when the cards were collected from them, they were used by others to vote at the election or their names were used to engage in multiple voting at the elections, the embossment of pictures on them notwithstanding.
In some cases particularly as witnessed in Ondo State, the politicians made mockery of the biometrics data capturing machine when pictures of prominent Nigerians who were not indigenes of the state were purportedly registered to vote at the 2007 elections. They were purportedly registered by the data capturing machine. According to experts, who conducted forensic investigation on the votes cast at the elections, the pictures of these Nigerians were used.
In Osun State, but for the Adrian Forty, an expert in Forensic investigations, PDP would have run away with their stolen mandate in 2007 gubernatorial election. Apart from falsification of or concocted results, objects such as palm kernel, feathers and stones were used to thumbprint ballot papers to guard against being detected by forensic investigation. Thanks to the Re trial Tribunal Judges who later accepted the forensic investigation as evidence in court of law and the election was upturned.
In the 2007 governorship and 2009 re-run elections in Ekiti State, all these irregularities were discovered by the foreign experts who separated the weeds from shafts in the election. At the end of the day, after the conduct of forensic investigations, four different results were produced at different points. Although, judiciary was also implicated in the election. In the first announcement of the election, INEC after the April 14, 2007 governorship election, declared that Segun Oni scored 177,780 votes and Kayode Fayemi had 108,305. After the tribunal judgement, the election result stood at Segun Oni 135,400 and Kayode Fayemi 141,306. Moreover, after the rerun, another election result emerged. Segun Oni PDP 114,140 votes and Kayode Fayemi 107,017 votes. However, after about two years of legal tussle on the election, the Appeal Court after the re-run election returned the following votes Kayode Fayemi 78,091 and Segun Oni 65,743. Thus, Kayode Fayemi was later declared as the winner after about three years of legal rigmarole. The present Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVC) were not error proof. Those who registered in two registration centres have collected their cards in spite of the scanning of the biometrics registration by INEC. The claim by INEC that over four million multiple registrations were discovered after the registration is a confirmation that Nigerian double registered. Hence there is need for forensic investigation as a complement.
Under the best political conditions, elections allow citizens to express their preferences, provide information about favored issues, stances and policies, connect voters to their governments, hold representatives and other leaders accountable, and settle social divisions that could otherwise become violent.
When elections are widely viewed as free and fair, this outcome reduces the likelihood that winners and losers in the election contests will take actions that undermine democratic foundations with destabilizing effects. If the contestants believe that they can participate in a regular election contest with transparency and fairness, and they endorse the electoral rules, then legitimacy, trust, and stability in society is enhanced and progressively entrenched. While elections are not sufficient by themselves to constitute a full, mature democracy, comparative empirical evidence shows that conducting elections- especially if they are accepted and allow true competition accompanied by the prospect of alternation in power can contribute to a virtuous cycle even under difficult conditions. Departures from this ideal however, are not uncommon, especially in new arid fragile democracies.
Some of the election forensic methods adopt techniques similar to those developed by those seeking to detect financial fraud. One basic idea the methods share is that members manipulated by human being typically have patterns of digits that are unlikely to have arisen through a “natural process such a free and fair election or normal commercial transactions. In essence, numeric manipulations or frauds tend to leave distinctive traces. If election results have unnatural patterns those anomalies should be detectable using statistical techniques.
Concluded
Professor Ogundipe
Toyin60@yahoo.com
Barrister Akinade
bayoakinade@yahoo.co.uk
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