IREV, BVAS, political parties and the fear of 2027 election, by Ezenwa Nwagwu

As the build up to the 2027 election begins, to my mind, three core areas require our attention for effective agenda setting: technology, transparency, and accountability.

This article will respectfully discuss each in turn, emphasizing the roles of IREV, INEC, and political parties.

This conversation will involve some hard truths, which I feel are essential to discuss, to guide us in the lead-up to the 2027 election. I believe firmly that as opinion and self imposed thought leaders, we must continually do our part, no matter how little, to assist in correcting misinformation and tackle deliberate mischief, outright falsehood, and twisting of logic around our elections.

It is not untrue to state that the political class benefits more from a poorly informed population. It is one reason they invest very little in education. To counter this, Civil society and the media must step up efforts to educate voters and citizens on the electoral process and the roles of different stakeholders.

We may not have the resources to match the propaganda machineries of the political class, but we will do our part to source and put the right information out there and thereby inspire citizens’ confidence in our electoral process.

Yes, I also share the sentiment that the 2027 elections may indeed face risks, but the real issue may not be solely due to the much touted failure of IREV or BVAS. Rather, it will be due to the collective failure of political parties, politicians, and civil society to educate voters, safeguard the process, and insist on reforms that ensure accountability across all levels. Without this shift in focus, our electoral system may continue to face credibility challenges, regardless of technological advancements.

Technology vs. Manual

So let’s get back to some concerns already being shared over the 2027 election and why it’s crucial to start engaging now .

As we look ahead to the 2027 elections, it’s essential to address the existing knowledge gaps and misconceptions about technological innovations in the electoral process is crucial. This is particularly relevant given the confusion surrounding whether our elections still remains manual and the roles of BVAS and the IREV portal – two crucial tools introduced to strengthen the integrity and transparency of Nigerian elections.

First, it appears that many Nigerians are yet to differentiate between BVAS and IREV portal and the roles the two technologies play in ensuring electoral integrity. BVAS simply enhances voter accreditation and reduces voter identification theft, and this has been hugely successful to the extent that the hitherto incredible figures from some states are no longer possible.

I must remind us that BVAS and IREV are INEC’s initiatives to shore up the integrity and transparency of their process.

Despite several efforts by INEC to introduce technology to our elections, however, our electoral process by the current legal regime is mainly manual. The political parties and their candidates aren’t ignorant of that – every political party has a legal adviser who advices them on the contents of the Electoral Act.

Currently, the overall voting, counting, and collation processes in Nigeria remain manual. The process involves the manually collated results at polling units are entered manually into form EC8a. Form EC8A is captured as a photo, using the BVAS machine and transmitted to the INEC Electronic Result Viewing (IREV) portal after political party agents and security personnel (police) have been handed manual copies.

It is important to explain that the IReV portal is not used for collation of results but rather for viewing results. The actual collation of results remains a manual process, further underscoring the manual nature of Nigeria’s electoral process.

The IReV is more or less like an auditor. If the result that has been produced from the polling unit and taken to the collation center does not match what was brought, the returning officer can refer to IReV. This is if there’s a dispute. If there is no dispute, then it may not be important to go to the IReV. It is like the VAR in football. You have to score a goal. If there is doubt about the goal, you go to a VAR. You don’t subject every goal to VAR just because the opponent does not like the goal that has been scored.

Furthermore, for transparency and to address the different layers of access to election results, there is also Form E60, which offers a lift in terms of integrity level for election results management. This is what we call the people’s result, which is pasted, mandatorily on the wall for interested voters in that polling unit. Citizens can then have an opportunity to take a snapshot of the results.

With this action, the voter in the polling unit has been satisfied by E60, and the party agent has also been satisfied by form EC8A. So, any serious political party who has agents in all of the polling units already has access to all of the results.

Accountability and Transparency:

There is no technical or legal impediment preventing political parties from utilizing an electronic results collation platform for themselves. In fact, political parties are fully capable of participating in the process and ensuring transparency by comparing the results uploaded from polling units with the manually collated ones. However, many parties have failed to take advantage of this opportunity.

Yet, after every election, politicians hold press conferences with claims of rigging. Still, not for once have we seen political parties using collated results from their situation rooms to challenge INEC’s results.

Now, this is where the progressive media must begin to ask politicians and political parties to take responsibility. You can not abdicate your responsibilities to civil society organizations. Going forward media should demand that Political parties begin to open their situation rooms to public and media scrutiny, just the way INEC opens its situation rooms for public viewing.

However, some of us understand why this has been difficult to attain. I will attempt to explain the reason for this indolence of the political parties. The major reason is their lack of organic party agents. The reliance of politicians on disgruntled and theiving INEC officials who hawk non existing solutions to help them win has blinded them from their responsibility.

Political Parties’ Responsibility

It is important to re-emphasize that the electoral process involves various stakeholders – INEC, security agencies, civil society, media, and politicians or political parties and the electorate

Yet, the challenge sometimes is that, 90 per cent of the time, in discussing the elections in Nigeria, we have made pastime of focusing on INEC and we leave the role of security agents; we leave the role of the political parties and their candidates and the role they play in making bad elections. For instance, in the 2023 elections, we recall that INEC officials were killed, some were kidnapped, and INEC’s offices were burnt down. I rarely hear anyone calling for justice for these workers.

INEC does not cause voter suppression; Politicians do in collaboration with disgruntled INEC officials. INEC does not unleash violence; politicians unleash violence. INEC does not buy votes. Politicians buy votes.

I have never heard the political parties hold meetings on how to strengthen our elections. They never invest in voters’ education. I never hear politicians introduce any innovation to our elections. Perhaps, the only innovation that could be attributed to them is voting buying, electoral violence, vile and hate speeches.

While it is foolhardy to absolve INEC entirely of the blame, especially when we see them look away from infractions that are visible to virtually impaired, we must also emphasize that elections are run based on laws and guidelines, not emotions. For instance, we must insist on reforms that do not allow the president to decide who should become INEC national commissioner and residentelectoral commissioners. Interestingly, have you seen a political party hold a press conference to call for any of such reforms?

Political parties have a responsibility to engage in the election process, including training agents, educating voters, and utilizing collated results to hold INEC accountable. Yet, many parties neglect these duties, instead relying on press conferences to claim rigging after elections.

Conclusion:

Let’s be clear, I’m not against electronic transmission of election results. But, in recent times, even the biggest democracies in the world, including the US, Germany and others, have debated returning to manual collation due to claims of hacking. Elon Musk, who sends rockets to space, recently called for the US election to use paper ballots because he believes that electronic voting is too easy to hack.

But even with our limited IT and cyber security infrastructure, my worry is that; is Nigeria really ripe for electronic transmission of results? We have seen our banking infrastructure crash. I do not want to imagine what our political class is willing to do to hack INEC’s servers

However, the point remains that currently, our process remains manual. Every stakeholders must therefore work together in ensuring the integrity of the election.

In conclusion, while BVAS has enhanced certain aspects of voter accreditation and made election fraud more difficult, there are still gaps in the overall transparency of Nigeria’s electoral process. INEC has done a part; the political parties need to now take a more proactive role in safeguarding the integrity of elections by fully participating in the collation process and holding INEC accountable where necessary.

INEC, civil society organizations and groups and the media can not shoulder the entire burden of electoral transparency, while politicians continue to use every tactic available to compromise the process. So, as we move towards 2027 election, it is essential for the media and civil society organizations to hold politicians accountable, pressing them to actively contribute to improving the transparency of our elections.

Nwagwu is the executive director of the Peering Advocacy and Advancement Center in Africa (PAACA)