New Voters’ Register Counter-Productive, Says Iwu
By Olawale Olaleye, 08.08.2010

Immediate past national chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Maurice Iwu has advised his successor, Prof. Attahiru Jega against the idea of compiling new voters’ register because it would be counter-productive.
Iwu stated this in a 109-page hand-over note he submitted to Jega on June 14. Jega had requested for N74.5billion to enable the commission produce a new voters’ register as he said the old one compiled under Iwu was highly unreliable.


The hand-over note was also submitted with three other supporting documents that include a cover note, the bound copy of the report of the National Conference for Stakeholders in Nigeria and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Nigeria 2010 voter registration review period.
Iwu stated: “Contrary to the current campaign to denigrate the National Voter Register, it was the Commission's opinion that while revision of the register is in order and following international best practices, it would be counter-productive to embark on an entirely fresh registration exercise.”

According to him some of the shortcomings noticed in the voters’ register were as a result of human error and deliberate plots by politicians to infiltrate the electoral process in their favour and that the present voters’ register are “updatable, upgradable and will now and in the future serve as hosts for the voters’ registers.”


He said the review undertaken after the 2007 elections indicated that the register can be upgraded for use for future elections and not entirely discarded.
“The National Voter Register has been reviewed in preparation for the forthcoming elections. The plan of work outlined provides for a) harmonisation and reconciliation of the data from the Polling Units and the Registration Areas with the Electronic Voter Register data, b) cleaning up of the individual state EVR database, c) integration of the data from the continuous voter registration into the revised voters' register. The final stage of the Voter Register Review is the public display for inspection and fresh registration of those who did not find their names in the register or those who have not registered before.

“The first phase of the Voter Registration Review project had been concluded and from the analysis of the report of the harmonisation and reconciliation of the polling units and registration areas with the Electronic Voters Register, only Akwa-Ibom and Anambra States have serious problems with their registers. The second stage of the project was initiated before I went on leave but the methodology for the cleaning-up of the registers had also been established. A Nigerian designed software that would provide a seamless integration of all the segments of the database and the result of the VRR had also been identified and tested.


“The draft verifiable National Voters Register was scheduled to be ready by August 2010. The cascade of activities planned for the VRR include extensive and intensive training of all the participating staff, voter education and the involvement of civil society and political parties in the entire exercise, and the procurement of additional hardware and software.
“After the field and processing of data in 2007, it was discovered that there was data loss due to improper backup procedure, crashed hard disk, and loss of DDC machines, virus attack and improper data capture by some Assistant Registration Officers (ARO 1). The implication of the above is the discrepancies in the number of voters in the Electronic Register with those of the manual register (Form EC1A). A major task in the maintenance of the National Register is to find ways to contend with an environment in which a horde of desperate, unrestrained elements are out to ensure that there is no order and that nothing works unless it will advance their political ambition.


“The Commission has started a nationwide review of the register of voters following the model used for the FCT Voter Register Review, which was very successful. It is a standard procedure to undertake a periodic review of voter register in order to correct any identified problems during its use for elections. The major problem with the 2006 Register is twofold: the first is that because of the late arrival of the DDC machines some of them were used in multiple locations and sometimes the voters were registered outside their expected Registration Areas, and deliberate input of false data by the adhoc staff hired as Assistant Registration Officers by politicians in order to boost the voting population of a particular community.”

In addition, Iwu said before he left as INEC chairman, the commission had already begun a continuous registration of voters. “The continuous voter registration commenced in each LGA office of the Commission in January 8, 2008. The registration is meant to take care of Nigerians who have turned 18 years and those who could not register during the last nationwide registration.
“The continuous voter registration commences each year in January and ends in December to enable the directorate backup and process the data to be given to political parties within sixty days in the New Year in line with the provision of the Electoral Act 2006. The data arising from the 2009 continuous voter registration have been processed for 26 states and already handed over to the political parties while the remaining 11 states are being processed.


“For two distinct periods before the 2011 elections therefore, the Commission planned to mount a review and revalidation of registered voters in all constituencies across the country. The first of these exercises was scheduled to take place between April and July, 2010. We have also established a National Voters Registry and two electronic data back-up centers to facilitate processing and maintenance of vital electronic information for the conduct of elections in Nigeria,” he stated.
“It is strange that those who make a mountain today of some wrong images of persons being discovered in the electronic voters register do not acknowledge that the wrong pictures of the persons were discovered because of the efficiency of the new platform of the electronic voters register. In the past fictitious names were easily registered and nobody could identify them.

Jega, while speaking on the problems with the present voters’ register said if it was used for the conduct of the 2011 polls, “this commission can only guarantee raising the credibility of that register, perhaps by only about 10% based on what we have seen of it. This is again, based on the availability of at least, 30,000 direct capture machines and the following time-lines.
“It will cost as much to do a clean-up of the voters’ register and produce a fresh one. If we are doing a cleaning up and to do it credibly, it will still be costly but it will be slightly less costly than a fresh voter’s registration. But if we are going to spend so much money to clean up, why don’t you do a fresh one. That was why as a commission we decided that the best option is a clean, fresh voters’ registration. It may cost as much but certainly it will cost more to do a fresh voters’ registration,” he said.



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