A Preliminary Forensic Analysis of INEC’s Website So Far

By

Mobolaji E. Aluko, Ph.D.

alukome@aol.com

April 28, 2003

INTRODUCTION

On April 12 and 19, 2003, elections to the National Assembly and to the Presidency/State Governorships of Nigeria were held.    Most notable on those days was the absence of large-scale violence, for which the Nigerian people and the security forces are to be commended.    INEC too appears to be worthy of commendation to the extent that the operational activities of 4-19-2003 (April 19, 2003) were reported to be better than that of April 12, even though bearing in mind the terrible reports heard for the first date, any improvement would have been noteworthy.

More importantly, various interesting results were obtained from the elections, some surprising, others not so surprising; some within reason of limits of believability, and others quite incredible.

Another point of commendation for INEC is that for the first time in the history of elections in Nigeria, it launched a website www.incenigeria.org,  belated but still very welcome, wherefrom people all over the world, and in particular Nigerians in the Diaspora ever keen on knowing about what is going on in Nigeria, were able to follow the elections on an almost up-to-the-minute basis.  Various websites such as www.gamji.com, www.ngex.com, www.kwenu.com, etc. have also contributed their quota in keeping everyone posted.

This writer keenly knows the difference between the 1998/99 elections and these present elections, when in time past sometimes conflicting data published in Nigerian newspapers the following day had to be re-keyed and analyzed by him.  Now, he simply has to copy and paste various results from the INEC website onto an Excel spreadsheet, add and subtract a few columns and rows of data, and “Voila!” – some interesting results, some quite bizarre (e.g. presidential candidate Mrs. Sarah Jibil’s outstanding Ikwerre popularity comes to mind, or the remarkable difference in Ogun State’s presidential and gubernatorial votes), emerge.  Another private website, www.naijadata.com even takes some of that drudgery away – within the limits of its being able to update its data to match INEC’s own. 

All the above are simple demonstrations of how information and communication technology (ICT) can aid transparency in a modern democracy as well as various areas of Nigeria, as being promoted by Nigerian Information Technology Professionals in the Americas NITPA www.nitpa.org in association with the Nigerian Computer Society (NCS).

Two further commendations before I get to my current inquiries of INEC.  The first is the recent announcement that some results in Anambra State have been annulled – namely all the elections for the 3 Senatorial seats and 6 out of the 11 House of Representatives seats because of gross irregularities having to do with substituted results tally sheets.  No further authoritative report of this annulment has been read by the writer, but if the facts are right, then INEC has fulfilled a responsibility that obviously does not require individual candidates to wait to appeal to electoral tribunals before INEC does some of its duties of assuring the electorate of the confidence that electorate should repose on it. 

In any of these particular elections, only one candidate can win.  However, if there is ANYTHING that can be done to prevent potential 118,898 court cases which might arise from an average of 14 political parties contesting for 1 presidential, 36 gubernatorial, 469 National Assembly and 3000 state assembly elections, it should be done by INEC setting some triggers for suspicious results and looking through the returns to identify potential ones for further investigation.  Only after then should egregrious ones be annulled.  This is bound to serve as one of several deterrents for future electoral malfeasance.

Such triggers might include:

1. zero (or less than 1%) invalid ballots out of tens and hundreds of thousands of  votes;

2. large differences between total ballots in any given constituency for elections on the same day as well as in comparison with elections held just the following week;

3. ditto for large rejection rates of ballots;

4. an inordinate percentage of contribution to the votes – and particularly to the  victory -  of any candidate by votes from just one constituency;

There may be explanations for all the above potentially observed triggers, but it behooves INEC to find out.

The second commendation has to do with the speedy reaction to the recent website error concerning the Lagos State gubernatorial elections.  Previously announced winner and incumbent governor Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu suddenly had his total number of votes become lower than that of his main challenger Chief Anthony Olufunsho Williams, an odd and potentially volatile situation which has since mercifully corrected by INEC on its website, with regrets.    We may not have heard the last of that controversy, judging from the fact that challenger Williams may also have issues to take up arising from the error, but one hopes that all will be done by INEC to prevent such a heart-stopping technological error in the future, particularly since next week Saturday, another avalanche of elections for the state assemblies will descend upon us.

WHAT INEC STILL HAS TO PROVIDE ON ITS WEBSITE

There are a few outstanding things that INEC still has to do, based on what is presently on the website. 

1.                  Outstanding National Assembly and Executive Offices Results

So far, there are 105 out of 109 senatorial districts and 318 out of 360 National Assembly reporting results on INEC’s website.  Not reporting so far are the following:

LIST 1: Senate Constituencies (each state out of 3); 4 not reporting in total: 

*Bayelsa West   

*Enugu North

*Gombe South

*Ondo North

LIST  2: House of Representatives Constituencies (42 not reporting in total)

Abia State [*ISIALA NGWA NORTH / ISIALA NGWA SOUTH, 1 out of 8]

Akwa Ibom State [*IKOT EKPENE / ESSIEN UDIM / OBOT AKARA; *UKANAFUN / ORUK ANAM; *UYO / URUAN / NSIT ATAI / IBESIKPO ASUTAN; 3 of 10]

Delta State [*OKPE / SAPELE / UVWIE; 1 out of 10]

Ekiti State [*EKITI SOUTH WEST / IKERE / ORUN; 1 out of 6]

Enugu State [*EZEAGU / UDI; *IGBO-EZE NORTH / UDENU; 2 out of 8]

Gombe State [*DUKKU / NAFADA; *KALTUNGO / SHONGOM; *YAMALTU / DEBA; 3 out of 6]

Kano State [ *15 out of 24 not reporting]

Katsina State [*DAURA / SANDAMU / MAI'ADUA; 1 out of 15]

Kwara State [*EDU / MORO / PATEGI; 1 out of 6]

Lagos State [ *IKEJA; OSHODI / ISOLO I; 2 out of 24]

Ondo State [AKOKO SOUTH-EAST / AKOKO SOUTH-WEST; *IDANRE / IFEDORE, *ONDO EAST / ONDO WEST; 3 out of 9]

Osun State [*ATAKUMOSA EAST / ATAKUMOSA WEST / ILESHA EAST / ILESHA; *AYEDIRE / IWO / OLA-OLUWA; 2 out of 9]

Taraba State [*IBI / WUKARI; 1 out of 6]

A big question that arises from these two lists is that since elections to the Senate and the HOR were held on the same day (April 12), with each voter given two ballots, and since HOR constituencies are smaller than the Senate constituencies (which comprise a few such HOR constituencies), one wonders why there are still no results for HOR constituencies in 9 states (Abia, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Ekiti, Kano, Katsina, Kwara, Osun and Taraba) when those states are not listed among the four (Bayelsa, Enugu, Gombe and Ondo) Senate Constituencies in List 1.

Table 1, which shows the Turnout Analysis for these thirteen states, does not assist in explaining this odd situation, which INEC might want to clarify, in this season of clarifications.

With respect to the executive offices, only Imo State has one constituency [Ahiazu Mbaise] not reporting in the Presidential elections.  That is a distinction worthy of mention.  Yet in the gubernatorial elections held on the same April 19, we are yet to have posted Anambra (2 out 21); Bauchi (20 out of 20), Borno (9 out of 27), Cross River (3 out of 18), Delta (5 out of 25), Gombe (11 out of 11), Imo (27 out of 27),  Kano (11 out of 44),  Katsina (6 out of 34), Ondo (1 out of 18), Plateau (1 out of 17), Rivers (1 out of 23), and Sokoto (2 out of 23).

One wonders why this is so, particularly in places like Bauchi, Borno, Delta, Gombe,  Imo and Kano where gubernatorial winners have already been declared.

2.                  “Number of Voters on Register – Not Available”

In Lists 1 and 2 above, all but one of the constituencies are starred (*), to indicate that if you were to go to their website URLs, you would see at the bottom of their results: “Number of Voters on Register – Not Available’”.  This is in fact the case for 47 out of the 109 Senate Constituencies,

Senate:  Abia, Adamawa, AKWA (IBOM NORTH WEST only), Bauchi, Bayelsa, BENUE (SOUTH only), Borno, DELTA (CENTRAL only), Enugu, Gombe, Imo, JIGAWA (NORTH-EAST only), KANO (CENTRAL, NORTH only), Kebbi, KOGI (CENTRAL,EAST only), Lagos, Ogun, ONDO (CENTRAL, NORTH only), OYO (SOUTH only), Sokoto

as well as over one-third of the 360 House constituencies.

Judging from the fact that INEC knows the number of registered voters for ALL of the states, one is left to question how and why ALL the number of registered voters for component units for ALL the states are not made available on the INEC website.  One simply needs to be re-assured that a musical game of numbers is not being played across the various components of any one state or constituency.

We hope that INEC can quickly fulfill all righteousness here.

EPILOGUE

Outside of the above concerns, and following next Saturday’s state assembly results, one can say that our Fourth (or is Fifth?)  Republic is off to a rollicking start.   Reading all the reports of the independent monitors local and foreign, and looking at the numbers in the results published so far, I have my deep suspicions about the freeness and fairness of the elections.  Allegations of rigging are not to be waved away by the mere flick of the hand.  Nevertheless, after 16 years of a military wilderness following the ruckus made over the August 1983 Shagari landslide/mudslide which led to a coup in December 1983; and following the cancellation of the June 12, 1993 presidential election of winner Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola, no one in his or her right mind in Nigeria has a stomach for ANY untoward actions in April 2003 that could arise from too loud complaints.

Consequently, we will have to “manage” most of the results as they are for now, as we continue to cross this “rickety bridge to (our) democratic Valhalla”, as Prof. Wole Soyinka once put it back in 1999. However, INEC would do well to give us some more confidence, and take whatever corrective action it can before aggrieved candidates are harried into using the democratic process of the courts and tribunals, steps which would in fact be trite in the absence of concrete evidence.

Finally, all participants are to be congratulated for their keen contests.   Defeated candidates are not losers – the joy for many of them has been in taking part, and maybe next time 2007 will be better now that they have experience.  Naturally, all winners are to be congratulated, and if they keep their wins, they should do all they can to improve the lives of our citizens.  God bless those candidates who have won fairly.  For those who have won unfairly and keep their wins, may they pray that God protect their secrets and forgive them as they embark on their new jobs or continue in their old ones. 

May God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria! She needs our prayers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

STAR CORRECTION:  INEC Corrects The Lagos Mistake!

http://www.gamji.com/aluko62.htm

Mobolaji Aluko, April 26, 2003

STAR MYSTERY SOLVED!: The Fortunate Case of Sarah Jibril

http://www.gamji.com/aluko59.htm

Mobolaji Aluko, April 25, 2003

STAR QUESTION: What Is Happening in Lagos Polls?

http://www.gamji.com/aluko60.htm

Mobolaji Aluko, April 25, 2003

STAR QUESTION: What Happened in Ogun Polls?

Adapted from www.naijadata.com

* Senate results for some constituencies not in as on April 27, 2003