The arguments advanced by the lawmakers against the compulsory “real-time” electronic transmission of polling-unit results to the public results portal were reasonable, though disappointing. Their concerns about the infrastructural deficits that could hinder the electoral process were legitimate.
Given how frequently the àbíkú national grid breaks down, and that the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, is so busy pursuing his electoral ambitions that he is oblivious to the expectations of his office, it is entirely right to plan for everything that could go wrong on election day.
Several of the lawmakers who got up to speak during their legislative sessions, where these matters were debated, raised some concerns about poor internet access, arguing that the infrastructure does not reach their remote villages and hometowns. Instead of gifting your community spurious “community projects” such as wheelbarrows, cassava stems, food items, ọ̀kadà (whole or in parts), or even whitewashing decrepit buildings, perhaps you should have prioritised internet connectivity to those villages you now claim are too backward for electronic technology?
While on the surface, the debate has been about guaranteeing electoral integrity, the larger argument is also about whether to accommodate our usual infrastructural shortcomings or work with them in such a way that makes room for us to possibly transcend them. It is ironic that the All Progressives Congress lawmakers cited poor energy supply as a reason to alter existing legal provisions, when it was the very same party that urged Nigerians to deny them a second term if they fail to resolve the problem. Almost a year until the end of their tenure and their possible re-election, why are they still making calculations against their own unredeemed promises? Imagine if they had spent the past three years working to guarantee their electoral promises; we would not be here haggling over whether we are ready to make improvements that should otherwise be basic. Truth is, there is no end to what Nigeria is not yet ready for at this stage of our national development. If we want to debate whether we are ready for electronic voting, then we should take some more time to ponder whether we—at this stage of our social development—should even be caught practising a form of governance like democracy. That will be a more interesting question.
As much as I would love for the Nigerian electoral process to be run with the efficiency of advanced technologies, I also think we should not get ahead of ourselves by thinking that the machine will solve our fundamental social problems—such as the lack of institutional integrity. Those who insist on electronic transmission of results seem to imagine it will resolve the problem of election integrity and even the embitterment that typically follows electoral losses.
We really should slow down with such high expectations. Yes, there is a lot to say about how much the “real-time” electronic transmission of results will improve our electoral processes. The 2023 election (as well as the preceding ones), where we ended up with many badly mutilated ballot papers, would have been different if the process had been more mechanised and far less room left for the degree of human manipulation that attended the conduct.
Unfortunately, the error that the machines can reduce is the one that occurs during ballot casting itself, not the systemic problems. Electoral malpractices do not begin—nor end—on election day; the problem with our elections starts way before the day the machine gets to contribute a thing to the process. Long before election day, our leaders routinely violate institutions and rewrite the rules of engagement to privilege themselves and disadvantage their opponents. The mere tensions they build up in the polity by taking selfish advantage of public institutions go a long way towards heightening cynicism towards the process and increasing bitterness when one party loses. Nothing they plot and carry out on election day comes any closer to the vicious vortex of politicians stealing money to get elected to public offices, where they will steal even more. Those already in power rake public funds into their private pockets, eventually wringing the country dry just to fund their elections.
That is how they can out-mobilise their opponents and even outspend them on campaign advertising. Their dominance of the public sphere has nothing to do with the superiority of their manifesto or their charisma. Most of what they manage to achieve is sponsored through the incumbency factor.
Even within parties, incumbency gives them undue advantage to commandeer the aspirants pool, buy over the delegates with dollars, win the primaries, and then repeat the process in the general contest where they either use violence to suppress dissenting voters or seduce the impoverished among them with a few thousands of naira that has been allowed to trickle down from the overflowing cauldron of money stolen from the collective purse. It is also why they can easily sponsor polling agents in the 176,000-plus polling units across the country and—as we saw in 2023—blame their opponents who could not afford a similar expense for being uncoordinated. The truth is, there is very little about this process that is truly credible, and far less that electronic transmission can mitigate.
Electronic voting is no solution to post-election disputes either. Nigerian politicians are bad losers, and the only electoral outcome that satisfies them is a win. Recall that in 2011, Tony Momoh, as the chair of the Congress for Progressive Change (the party that later merged into the Action Congress of Nigeria to become the present APC), alleged that his party was trounced in the presidential election because of a computer programme specifically designed to reduce their votes. As ridiculous as that sounds, it also makes some sense. When a Nigerian politician loses to an incumbent and alleges “rigging”, they are not necessarily saying they lost because the scores transmitted did not reflect popular consensus; they also mean the ground was not level enough for a credible contest.
These are serious systemic issues that need to be addressed, and the focus on whether results can be transmitted in “real time” or not is, at best, a distraction from the complex systemic problems that need untangling.
Now, let me also add that if I were given the chance to determine whether Nigeria should proceed with the electronic transmission of results, I would likely choose “yes”. That is because I would prefer to see us putting ourselves through the stress test to motivate us to push beyond our limitations, thereby giving us the chance to develop resilience, understand our weaknesses, and foster the innovation that allows us to progress. That will be good for us; no society anywhere in the world arrives overnight; they all develop through constant evolution and continuous self-improvement.
In this case, there is also a possibility that basic electricity and internet connection will need to be facilitated, specifically because of the election. In a bid to organise the elections more efficiently, there is some—and even in these moments of optimism, one must make room for the so-called Nigerian factor— possibility that the infrastructure made available to support the quadrennial event of election will become permanent and drive a measure of development in the areas whose lawmakers say they have no internet connection. That is the angle that would motivate me to support electoral transmission as against the idea of merely throwing up my hands to say, “everything we are at the moment limits us, and therefore progress is not worth pursuing.”
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