Real time electronic transmission of results: that this may not be a pyrrhic victory
Yes the Obidients are giddy. And why not? Afterall a combination of ethnic champions and their lose cannons got a flummoxed, Akpa6pbio – led Senate, as if they were not
Yes the Obidients are giddy. And why not?
Afterall a combination of ethnic champions and their lose cannons got a flummoxed, Akpa6pbio - led Senate, as if they were not thinking of its possible consequences, to beat a retreat from an otherwise solid decision which they had earlier taken, concerning electronic transmission of election results.
Apparently none of the members must have seen the video of a group of Canada - based Igbos assuring Peter Obi, that he shouldn't worry about the 2023 election because they had enough tech- savvy members to win the election for him. Interpreted properly, what this meant was that these fellows, who were in no way capable of voting at the election, were prepared to hack into the INEC system to get what they had yearned for like forever, that is, the Nigerian presidency.
Let me enter a caveat here and to do so, I shall be quoting Idowu Ephraim Faleye in an essay he captioned:"Boko Haram, ISWAP, and the Network of Silent Enablers: An Ideology at War with Freedom". Therein he wrote, inter alia:"Nigeria is a country built on differences. Different religions. Different ethnic groups. Different cultures. This diversity is not a weakness. It is our strength".
Very true.
But one should begin to watch out when you always find together, the likes of Peter Obi, Oby Ezekwesili, NLC's Ajaero, NBA's Afam Osigwe,
Senate's Enyinnaya Abaribe and sundry others, engaged in the pursuit of some narrow, opportunistic and ethnically - motivated 'struggles', that is, struggles which in any form or shape, are unlike the Pan- Nigerian struggles that saw Gani Fawehinmi, Beko Ransome Kuti, both of blessed memory, and Femi Falana locked up in detention centres far beyond their neck of wood.
Notice, for instance, the so- called struggles the first group was involved in the nonsensical "25 per cent of Abuja votes" during the 2023 Presidential election. Equally so, the many outrightly useless issues over which we saw both the Ajaero -led NLC and Osigwe's NBA threatening to call out workers on national strike.
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In my article: 'River's State Emergency: Those Criticising The President Must Be Thinking That The Constitution Is Dumb Or An Ass" of 30 March, '25 I reflected on this same phenomenon when I wrote:"But if most lawyers acted 'uberima fidei', certainly not so Afam Osigwe, SAN, the NBA President, who emerged the "comrade Joe Ajaero" of the entire event the way he coyly sought to call people, not just his fellow lawyers, but every Nigerian, out on a mass rising. Hear the 'Labour leader':"At this inauspicious moment in our nation's trajectory, all people of goodwill and conscience should rise to oppose this audacious violation of our constitution and rape of our democracy". “Mr. President must be made to know and understand in unmistakable terms that this illegality cannot stand”. He then concluded by “asking politicians across Nigeria to speak up and rise against the country's descent into totalitarianism.”
You would have thought it was Joe Ajaero heckling as usual.
I am not an enemy of free, fair and transparent election.
I cannot at my age now suffer a Pauline conversion in a matter concerning which I earned a solid reputation fighting against a series of President Obasanjo - inspired rigged elections in my native Ekiti state; a fight so ferocious I became the subject of discussion at one of the meetings of the Ekiti Council of Obas when, in one of my articles, I railed against some of its members who were colluding with the government in power to influence the tribunal judgment.
If anything surprises me now, it is for how long senior members of the bar would look askance, as its National Association is routinely brought into matters in which other Igbo -led organisations are heavily weaponised in pursuit of narrow interests.
Like the aforementioned Abuja issue, this electronic transmission matter is another and both the NLC and the respected NBA were all waxing lyrical simply because they know that their Diasporan compatriots are ready to compromise the election, forgetting that such could very well be the end of Nigeria as we know it.
That is why they are insisting on the transmission of the Presidential election result, REAL TIME, even after the senate had buckled under their combined pressure, as some other ethnic groups are not uninterested.
Three contemporaneous articles will help in throwing light on this issue.
The first is titled 'a list of Major Democratic Countries That Dont Use Real Time Electronic Transmission of Election Result'.
Of the 29 names on the list(and that's not all), let me name a few, randomly, from all parts of the world.
Here we go:France, U.K, U. S, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden,Poland, Romania, Finland Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Chile Malaysia, Cambodia Japan, South Korea, Singapore, India (the largest democracy on earth).
So what exactly is driving these Nigerian opportunistic defenders of democracy?
Another fascinating, and quite relevant piece is the one titled: 'Real Time Electronic Transmission of Results Is a Judicial Ambush, by Rotimi Fasan, the inimitable Vanguard newspaper columnist.
Poor Rotimi, hardly had he landed than Obidients, like wolves and as usual, descended on him.
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And what exactly rattled these lilly livered 'democrats'?
Nothing more than the fact that Rotimi clinically opened them up when he wrote:" An opposition in need of strategic direction, their bored supporters, together with career agitators and common anarchists; CSOs and their collaborators that must justify every donor fund to the last cent, suddenly found a subject that is downbeat enough to unite them in tearful humour. A media station that went live to the protest venue brought to Nigerians the excited screams and noises of the protesters. When I started writing this, only Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate in the 2023 election and a member of the ADC coalition had, it was reported by Arise News, arrived at the venue.
It is easy to visualise him in his favourite black apparel in which he mourns everything Nigeria except when it concerns the South-East.
His quarrelsome supporters, practising fascists that turn every issue into a grievance, either in their LP or IPOB incarnation, are at the vanguard of this reckless attempt at stampeding the national legislature. We saw the same game play out with the 'all-eyes-on you' campaign against the judiciary in the weeks following the 2023 election. The repeated appeals for military intervention at the time yielded a coup plot that ongoing investigation tells us could have been executed way back in May 2023 but for inadequacy of funds". "An opposition that is stubbornly insistent on real time transmission of results seeks a potent judicial ambush for an election it knows it is poised to lose going by observable metrics. If the majority must agree to it, it should be by consensus not brazen imposition. And when they do, they should realise that they have consented to the creation of a force majeure that would as likely as not leave the country in such legal bind that will only overinflate the relevance of marginal political parties and their promoters".
Sad that they never accept the truth. If they do, the Biafran war the great Zik advised against would never have happened nor could two young men, Nnamdi Kanu and Simon Ekpa, have succeeded in litetally ruining their entire region's economy on top of killing thousands of their own people.
The final article is Bello Isiaka an AI, Ethical technology and digital inclusion consultant. In his article titled:
'Nigerians and The Noise Over Transmission of Election Results', a piece I crave his permission to use as a learning curve for, especially, members of the National Assembly on matters relating to elections.
His position on the issue at hand, he said, is "ideological. It is practical, ethical and systems-based".
Continuing, he wrote:"First, we are not talking about online voting.
Yes, Nigeria does not conduct online voting. Votes are cast physically, at polling units, by human beings. So any conversation that treats electronic transmission as if an “AI system” determines winners is already flawed".
"What we are discussing is result transmission, not voting".
In case our legislators don't know or have been so browbeaten by Ajaero's and co, he reminded them that:"Voting is physical, People witness the count; Agents sign the result, and
Copies are issued".
This he says: is intentional as the original result sheet from the polling unit is the FOUNDATION of electoral credibility".
"No country", he added, relies solely on what appears online to declare winners".
Tu compre?
Are they listening?
But then, he has not finished as he goes on to relate that to how Nigeria's system is designed to work.
He explains:"At each polling unit:
1. Votes are counted publicly,
2. Results are announced,
3. Result sheets are signed by officials and agents
4. Copies are given to party agents. Then
5. Results and accreditation data are transmitted electronically.
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This dual process, he added, is a safeguard, not a contradiction".
That, he says, is the correct use of technology - supporting human records, not replacing them.
From an AI ethics and digital inclusion perspective, he warns, relying solely on electronic transmission is dangerous because:
1. Nigeria has uneven digital access - network reliability varies by location,
2. Devices fail.
3. Power fails, and
4. Digital literacy is inconsistent.
A system that excludes people or regions, he concluded, is not democratic,2 no matter how advanced it sounds.
And technology must adapt to society - not the other way around" - ododo oro.
He then advises:] “The real way to stop rigging in Nigeria is simple and straightforward.
There is no shortcut here.The strongest protection against rigging is:
1. Party agents at every polling unit
2. Possession of original signed result sheets
3. Independent collation by parties
4. Presenting physical evidence when disputes arise".
Is Mr Peter Obi listening or in what fraction of 2023 polling booths were he, or his then party, represented?
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Our honest, non - political teacher then finally concludes:"All put together, we must hear the hard truth. You cannot: Abandon polling units
Fail to deploy agents
Rely on social media images
And expect courts or INEC to “retrieve results” for you.
Democracy does not work on imagination.
It works on process, evidence and presence.
So, let's stop all these election transmission brouhaha.
Let us make the best use of the electoral system we presently have. Nigeria's current system - physical results backed by electronic transmission - is not backward.
It is balanced".
"Those who truly want credible elections should focus less on shouting “server” and more on:
1. Grassroots organisation
2. Polling-unit vigilance
3. Evidence-based challenges
That is how democracies are protected.
And you need Political Structures to deliver that not Social Media Validation".
".And why, for Christ's sake, is the National Assembly coy about establishing an Electoral Offences Tribunal, not even court? They must tell Nigerians.
