2019: INEC UNVEILS ELECTRONIC COLLATION AND RESULTS TRANSMISSION SYSTEM

PROF. MAHMOOD YAKUBU

Following the release of the 2019 election timetable by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC the electoral body has unveiled an electronic collation and results transmission system.

This is with a view to eliminating manual collation which the commission says enables malpractices.

According to INEC’s Director of Information and Communication Technology, Chidi Nwafor, this development was disclosed recently during a media parley chaired by the Commission’s chief, Mahmood Yakubu, in Abuja.

Making his presentation which was centered on “deployment of technology and innovations to drive Nigeria’s electoral system ahead of the 2019 general elections”, Nwafor highlighted the weakness of the current collation system which involves manual transmission of results sheets from one stage to the next, up to the point of final collation in the course of which malpractices are perpetrated.

“Observations have shown that most election malpractices that take place do not take place at polling units,” said Mr. Nwafor, a fellow of Nigerian Society of Engineers who supervised the deployment of permanent voters’ cards and smart readers for the 2015 elections.

He said it was barely possible to “rig” at polling units where everybody participates in the process of counting of ballot papers and recording of scores.

“The challenge has been after the poll; between the polling units and the collation centres and at the collation centre”.

“INEC has therefore decided to securely transmit results from all polling unit to a central database such that only viewing access is allowed at the wards and local government levels; which ultimately eliminates manual collation processes”.

The new e-collation system has four procedures, namely:

1.    Results from polling units will be entered into the e-collation application on the smart card reader;

2.     Results are transmitted to a central server;

3.    Results are auto-collated and can be viewed at the RAs (wards and ECA8s can be scanned at that level; and

4.    Result audit and confirmation takes place at collation centres at LGSa, state and national level.

The new system, according to Mr. Chidi Nwafor, could be used for all elections, from local council polls which INEC conducts in the Federal Capital Territory to the Presidential election. Adding that, the system had a “flexible dashboard to with a real-time user, interface showing a graphical presentation of status of results collated per given time”.

The e-collation system is further expected to improve the credibility of Nigeria’s electoral process, as did PVC and smart card reader when deployed for the 2015 elections, reputed as the credible since the inception of the Fourth republic in 1999, Nwafor stated.  

According to INEC, the new system would first be deployed as pilot phase for 

the Anambra State Governorship elections slated for November 2017.  

“INEC is preparing for the 2019 elections and is further deploying technology to improve its service delivery and make its processes less prone to manipulations”, INEC’s Director of Information and Communications Technology emphasized.

Speaking at the media parley, Prof. Yakubu disclosed that the Commission had been meeting with security, intelligence and military agencies to improve security of elections in Nigeria. 

According to the INEC Chairman, the 29 staff of the Commission suspected to have been involved in misconducts during the Rivers elections which had attracted condemnation following reported cases of widespread violence and malpractices that resulted in delays before the exercise could be concluded, had been interdicted pending the outcome of investigations and prosecution by the police.