 Welcome back to the breakfast on plus TV Africa. The conversation about the electronic transmission of election results ahead of the 2023 elections has remained a subject of debate. Now, INEC has published a 25 page position paper and basically say that it is ready for each transmission of results. Let's invite public affairs analysts Mr Ezekiel Eaitouk for more on this. Good morning Mr Ezekiel Eaitouk. Good morning and nice to see you on plus TV. Thank you for joining us. Now we know that the debate about whether INEC can conduct elections and transmit results electronically has been a big one with the National Assembly waiting and asking INEC to go ahead and you know consult with the NCC. So my first question is this. Is it that the National Assembly has no faith in INEC's capability to transmit election results electronically or that they have no respect for INEC's independence? I think that in all on the truth is known to every national. And that truth is that on the ultimate, the National Assembly is, I would use the word, a threat of threatening the reality that if things are done properly it might be counterproductive to spend because they are not used to things being done properly. I say this with every sense of responsibility because everybody knows that the most transparent approach to any endeavor is electronic. So the question is do you have the capacity to do it? And it is very clear INEC has some time and time again. They have also the most pressure that they have. So what's the problem? I would like us because we are very likely going to be speaking with the first of this morning. But I want you to share what your definition of electronic voting is. Is it really just a transmission of results or is there a possibility that there can actually be electronic voting that don't necessarily require being at a polling unit? When we go into electronic voting, we are taking it as much higher. We can talk about the university without talking about the second school or primary school. The primary electronic transmission of results because electronic voting is a lot more complicated and there is a constant consensus on that for now. But there is a continuous national electronic distribution of results. It's been done before and if you know what's going on, I let God have a portal. On that portal, they can actually display the results. The challenge is that that result is not terrible in court because they don't talk about manuals and books and what one has called it and not manuals and electronic voting. I don't know if you get that. I think God has everything that they need, absolutely all that they need for them to be able to get the results of the polling unit, transmit the results to their server. They do have a server. They have all those things. They have tested all of them. It works perfectly. The challenge is that you cannot take that which is on their server and go to any litigation or any sort of law because that particular aspect is not recognized by law. So what I let you say is let the national assembly give them also that particular section so that they are allowed to vote manually and electronically transmit the vote. That's where the challenge is right now. So Ms Aiyai Tuk, what sort of an impact do you think the electronic transmission of results might have on Nigeria's election results management? Oh that aspect that's clear as day. You see, I've been involved in two elections and let me go into detail. What you have at the polling unit which is the authentic result is a child's play compared to what you have at the Colation Center. At the Colation Center two things happen. The first thing is that they can just add in zeros and it makes all the difference and they can also charge just one ticket from the opponent and it makes all the difference. That's number one. Number two is that when you go and do a accreditation and assuming that the polling unit had about 700 registered voters and it's so happening that they only release the form for 300. It means that there is additional 4th place that these people can just vote somewhere and do terrible some things and then so you discover that someone that had 100 now has 100 plus 400 which becomes 500 and goes to the second opponent who has got 200 after the 200. I don't know if you get all the things. So if we had allowed it to remain electronic transmission it means that that's 300 that was transmitted from the polling unit in the final result. So it is no room for all those from printing and manipulation. Those are two extremely important determinants of election results. So those are the issues. I let you say we want to be able to have elections that we are happy with and that the only way we can do is to create these problems that happen at the position center. That is where our national asset, the unfortunate, is uncomfortable with. So it means we are not going to let that happen because without three specific elections we will never make progress in this country. And the good people that want to join the election and manner of it is not their current So we are not going to allow, we are going to rise as citizens and put a different concept for them to be the right thing. So let's talk about this. That's why like on the strength of October there's going to be a concentration of citizens on this electronic transmission of results and I let as the national asset, as the people that have been blinded, at the same time they are going to try to take me to show that you and you are political because you know I've got more. Well Ms. Hainatouk, you know I'm just going to go back to the National Assembly now. There's a story that says a particular Senator Yusuf Ali had said that the electronic transmission of results conversation must be revisited in the bid up to the elections. But I want you to go on with sharing your thoughts on why it seems the National Assembly is crying more than to be read. If Hainatouk has said that they will be capable of you know electronic transmission of results, what exactly is the National Assembly on about? My brother, truth is bigger. But if we are going to make progress at the nation, we will be willing to face this situation. You and Ms. Hainatouk know that the people in elective talks are not the best partners. We know that. Why is this so? Let me give you a very, very effective example of what it is. In the last election, over 18 million Nigerians looked out to vote. Out of over 18 million, about 30 million actually went out to vote. Now it is easy for us to be lazy intellectually and just think about it. Think about it. Think through this person. Why did over 65% of Nigerians look in to vote? I will tell you through it. Number one is a man is actually who they rock and they have to. And he says I don't have to do it. That's number one. Talk about the candidate. The worst is the first thing. You know that these people will announce what they want to announce. So why do you bother yourself? Let them just go ahead and announce. But if you solve that second problem first, let people know that they are both going to count. Two things happen. Number one is that those people that are not just eligible, they should be eligible. Those people that know that they should, the offices involved, they will come out. Secondly, the citizens will now have to go what choice to make. So by the time we are able to process this process to be credible, 90% of the people in elective offices will not be there. How do you expect them to call the law of self-preservation? How do you expect them to be feeling and excited about going to change the process so that it is trying to try a free fair and transparent, credible way to know that it's going to be against their self-preservation? I think the time has come when really Nigeria, the citizens, should just come out and demand. And that's when we have decided to. And we are going to put constant pressure on government from first of October to whenever it's needed. This country belongs to us. It doesn't belong to them. It belongs to all of us. So Ms. Hanyantuk, you've been mentioning this thing about October 1st and I suppose Raleigh, you know, in support of this. But what can you say generally about public support for each transmission of results in Nigeria? It is overwhelming. After much research, this is one consensual that Mr. Strange can write on so that he has over 99.9% of Nigeria. Yes, it has become the poverty capital of the world. These are losing their jobs. These are losing it. They are losing their minds, not just themselves. Because you are bringing engineers to the cockpit. No. Politicians are like engineers. They cheat the aircraft. And when they finish, the time of a strange force of threat to the aircraft. That line has to be stopped. Governance has to be suppressed. Governance has to be for the best she said people. And not the reward process. Oh, it is our turn. Oh, you don't be a turn. What's that? When Nigeria wanted to win the World Cup, they removed a Nigerian coach that's here. And we went to Germany to beat a man to come and tell you to catch the draw. To come and be a coach, because we wanted to win. On the last match that we had against Leverud, about eight of the 11 players went from the South East. We didn't care. We just wanted to win. And we won and we qualified at the World Nation of the Party. In fact, today, Nigerians don't care where they come from. They just want the right thing that can stop the economy. Can do corruption. That's all we want. We don't care where you come from. We like the concept of pressure and the force. We try to do it and be able to come and be a president. And the corruption would allow. I'll be good for it. Well, I'm also showing today's Nigeria. There's a lot of conversations about where the next president should come from. I'm sure that a lot of people may not agree with the we don't care where you come from narrative. But I want us to move into talking about voter registration now. INX online process is currently suspended. The next set starts, I think, on the 4th of October. That's when the second stage of online registration would begin. I want your views on what the numbers are currently looking like. It's just about 1.8 million, I think, that have been fully registered. It's still a long way to go. If we are planning on having more and more people registered to vote by 2023, do you see or do you think that there is, you know, possibility that Nigeria will be able to meet up with record-breaking figures with regard to registered voters in 2023? Pretty interesting question there. Was that the last thing I took at this time? I really can't wait, you know, to get that INX hedge to come into, really clarify some of these issues, because it seemed like a pretty authoritative piece. INX really put in its foot down to say, we can transmit results electronically. I mean, they went on to talk about how they've been using basically SMS systems to message people, how they were working with mobile network operators all the while, how they even went ahead to do the online election registration, to say that we are capable of doing this. Annek also mentioned in that paper that for the past 10 years, they have been conducting research into this area and have authoritatively, you know, the statement that they say that they can conduct elections and transmit it electronically. So the button of contention here is what's stopping them. Ms. Ayato, glad to have you back. Sadly, we lost him again. But really, we know that Nigeria's electoral process has really been marred by corruption. Corruption, basically, because of ballot snatching and things like that. So that's why proponents of this system believe that it's something that can mitigate all those challenges. But people also bring up the issues of hacking to say, oh, that's a possibility that, you know, people can hack into the system, people can manipulate the results and all of that. But really, that's why we need to hear from the source, really explain just what the challenges are with this electronic transmission of results and what are the plans of Annek to mitigate them? Because we need to have these facts on the table to decide what exactly do we do next. And exactly with the National Assembly, how can Annek bring them over to their side, especially with the NCC as well and other mobile network operators? Because I believe that for this to be resolved, everybody really has to speak in one voice and be on the same page, don't you think? Yeah, I'm mostly concerned about the level of interest with regards to electoral process. Yes, the National Assembly will do what they can. Annek also has its role, but the Nigerian people, the electorate, and how many more people are interested. And it's something we probably need to look into and see if there's more people who, at this point, don't want to even bother themselves, or there's more people that really want to be involved in the process. Because you're not going to be sending electronic, sending results electronically of nobody. Who voted, yeah. Exactly, they have to be people who are really, really interested. And a number of states on the 6th of November is going to be a very clear picture of what the southeast might look like in 2023 with regards to elections. But we'll get there. Ms. Ayantok, welcome back. Thank you. All right, I was speaking earlier. I was asking you about your thoughts with regards, Annek's registration of voters. Online registration is currently suspended. It's going to be starting again on the 4th of October. But what's your thoughts? So what are your thoughts really on the level of interest that you've seen with Nigerians registering to vote? And of course, getting themselves ready for 2023, the numbers so far, just a little above 1 million that have been fully registered by Annek, there's 3 million plus that have started the process that hopefully would be concluded pretty soon. But are these numbers impressive enough, or do you think that Nigerians could have done better? I don't know if the program is a little challenging, but let me, I think you're talking stuff of the online registration that Annek was doing. Yes, online and general. A lot of that line of thought. If Annek showed you the response in the sense that if they gave me the analysis, you know, you realize that when there was this, we are going to have this electronic transmission. Also, the National Assembly was an amendment, electoral act amendment. They were suddenly starting to like, starting to lose confidence, like, oh Lord, no, no, no. The most important system is going to be free-faith, thanks to transferring categories and elections. So in this program, we think we're starting to do what you are obligated to do, understandably, because of what I'm going to mention now, that are given on site to raise up the figure again. So by the time it has opened again, you are going to find a sort of a rush of people because we've told you at the time, I've told you, I know a lot about this, but when you want to buy, output of the citizens is the highest of each in the land. So we cannot afford the luxury of putting down and working this for good. So we found that program and then we're now saying that no, not again, or henceforth, we're going to demand our rights as citizens. All right, Ms. Haini Aitok, we know that this electronic transmission of results seems like the ideal right now. I mean, when we look at all the challenges, manual transmission of results and see how this electronic transmission seems to remedy those challenges, it seems ideal. But let's be honest, Nigeria is yet to achieve 100% internet penetration. So in those places where internet services are limited or even unavailable, what should I do in those places? And is it that there's going to be e-transmission of results in some places and manual in others? And how do we bridge that gap? Now, I wish you would hear me, and hear me very, very loud and clear. Two things I want to say with respect to you. Number one is that internet has authenticated. They have authenticated that they have a minimum of 93% internet of Nigeria. They have. They have made that claim in a child's document. So number one, number two, this technology is like sexiness age. It does not have to be authenticated. When you have authenticated a sex and place this sex on it, if your network is not there at that time, you can always treat that message. You see? What happens is that as you move towards the correlation center, before you arrive there, you will have arrived at this stop, your message goes. So look for a different type of sex. The worst case scenario is that the distance between AUR or the sex, the between where you are and what state to take your area, which could be one hour depending on the distance you are going to, your message goes. So nobody simply doesn't need to know this fact. So nobody is doing it for time. No. The worst case scenario is that there is a delay of maybe one hour or two hours, and so three minutes in a country where after three days, it's trying to find out how to score next year results and kind of complicate what they did waiting for two hours that is happening. All right. Miss Hainatouk, thank you very much for joining us and for of course sharing your views on this very, very important discussion as well. You are good and you couldn't see my face, but I am cool with that. Absolutely fine. All right. Thank you so much. You're welcome. The conversation we've been having is about the electronic transmission of results. And INEC's recent stance saying that they have the capacity to transmit election results electronically. We have Festus Okoye joining us via phone. Good morning, Mr Okoye. Yeah, good morning. Okay. So this debate has been on for a while now, but INEC finally released that paper saying that they do have the capability to transmit results electronically. Please put the facts and evidence before us regarding how much preparations and research that INEC has done to show that they can indeed transmit results electronically. Well, you know, to the end of the 2019 election, the Commission has conducted 27 by-elections and some of these by-elections revolved around the governorship election. We had the governorship election in Auguste. We also had the governorship election in Auguste. And we uploaded the results of the division into our INEC Resolving Portal. I mean, all these other places where we conducted this election, we also did the same thing. So the implication is that we have proved to the Nigerian people, concretely, that we have the capacity to transmit electoral results electronically. And as you can see, we have also made it very clear that it had a discussion with the NCC in 2018. And as of that particular period, it was made clear that 93% of our full information were covered by the mega-next one. So the issue is now whether we have the capacity, we have proved that we have the capacity to transmit electoral results and we have also demonstrated that capacity in some of the by-elections that we have had in Nigeria. Okay, now let's talk about the 93% you just mentioned. What then is the plan for the other, well, 7% of your polling units that may not have, of course, internet penetration, what then would be done for those areas? Well, the major network operators, especially ETL, MTN, GloMobile and Nymobile, I showed the commission that the 7% was not an issue, was not a problem. And we had also agreed on the costing for them to cover the remaining 7%. But as you know, this thing was something that was done in 2018. And that's almost three or four years ago. And today, the level of internet penetration has increased. The robust nature of our mobile networks has also increased. So we are confident that if the same procedure was applied today, we won't have any major challenge at all. Moreover, you know that we expanded our polling units. And when we carried out this expansion, we determined the codiness of all our polling units. And we used the mobile networks to determine this codiness. So the issue of transmitting election results electronically is really not an issue. Moreover, we have made it clear that section 78 and section 118 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria gives us the leeway, gives us the right to make a determination on how to conduct elections in Nigeria. Our challenge is not whether we have the power or the rights or the virus to transmit election results. What we are saying is that we need the National Assembly to amend sections 63 and section 67 of the Electoral Act, which prescribes manual collision and manual transmission of election results to enable us to carry out the innovations we have introduced to enable us to transmit election results and collate them electronically. So that is where the challenge is, and that is where the issue is about. Fantastic. Mr. Okoye, if like you've said the Constitution gives you the mandate to carry out election results independently, and all you're simply asking is for an amendment to this Constitution to allow you now do that electronically. Why do you think there's just such an opposition from the National Assembly against INEC conducting elections and of course transmitting them electronically? Well, I think that some of the opposition are born out of partisan political interests, some of them revolve around lack of adequate and clear information relating to what we tend to do, and some of them just revolve around the fear of what the Commission is up to. You know that we have been very innovative as a Commission. We have introduced a political parties nomination portal through which political parties upload the lists and personal particulars of their nominated candidates electronically. We have also done that for civil society groups and organizations, and we have also done that for the media, and we have also used the Z-pad to upload a polling unit results. And now, as you are aware, we have introduced the BIVAS, which will enable us to carry out accreditation using the fingerprints and the facial of the voters and increasing the level of transparency and preventing identity theft at the level of the polling unit. So I think it is fear of those who, fear on the part of those who have been manipulating the electoral system for so long and believe that if INEC introduces more innovations that boost more technology into the electoral process, our elections will become more transparent and they will not be in a position to do some of the things that they have been used to doing. Mr. Okoye, I also want you to quickly speak on those who also have doubts with regards e-transmission of results and those who ask whether there is a possibility that false figures can also be sent electronically. How is INEC going to ensure that this is not possible? Well, you know, all these issues, we have sorted it out with the mobile network operators, and we have also done a penetration test and also tested the robustness of our systems using those you call ethical hackers and so on. So we have covered the issue of secreting in relation to some of these systems. Now what we are saying is that if you look at the trajectory, the configuration of our elections, our elections is organized on a step-by-step basis. At the level of the polling units, you sort out the scores of the candidates and the votes of the political parties and enter them one by one into from ECHA. And then the presiding officer stands, signs, and then the pool agents will also sign. And it is also carried manually, transmitted manually to the next level of coalition, which is the area coalition. And it goes from there, you have the returning officers who will make those announcements. That is what we are saying should be changed to enable us to do these things electronically and nothing more. Okay. Mr. Okoye, I want us to be honest about this particular situation. What really are the challenges, the underlying challenges with the e-transmission of results as you are aware right now? And if you say there are no challenges, are you saying to Nigerians that if these sections are amended in the constitution and you go ahead to transmit results electronically 2023, it will go off without a hitch? I will never say that there will be any challenge with the issue of transmission of election results and that every election we go out without a hitch. I will not be honest in making that particular assumption. The only thing technology can assist you in terms of conducting a good election. But technology alone cannot guarantee free and transparent elections in Nigeria. We have been test-running and piloting electronic transmission of results for a 10-year period. And we believe that we have the courage, that we have the capacity to now take it to a national level. But if we are giving the power, if the law is amended, we will start with smaller elections in terms of test-running some of these things, so that if there are challenges here and there, we can obey those challenges and then take care of those challenges. For instance, the BVAS, we are going to use the BVAS in Anambra State, but we have to go to Isoko South One State Constituency Election to do a test run and look at the challenges we may likely encounter. And we have taken care of some of those challenges and we are now going to deploy it to Anambra. So if we are giving the leeway, we will use smaller elections to return test run and then see whether there are issues we need to take care of. And then we take care of those issues before we get to the 2023 during election, because it's dangerous to introduce a new innovation using a very, very big election. And I think this particular commission is very, very rational and reasonable and we normally do test run, return test run before we deploy at a national level. All right, Professor Sukoi, final question. If you can, as briefly as possible, share with us what the current status is with online registration, voter registration. And I believe it's also going to be resuming on the 4th of October. How is INEC encouraging more people to register online? Yeah, so we are encouraging more people to register online. And I think that it has been a very, very wonderful experience. This is the first time any electoral managing body in Africa has been online voter registration. And the youths have been massively patronizing the online, online voter. And we believe that at the end of the day, the youths are going to form the majority of those who are going to be registered voters in relation to this continuous voter registration. So we are making progress and we are very, very excited at what is going on. Professor Sukoi, Head of Voter Education, thank you very much for your time this Monday morning. We wish you a very interesting week ahead. Thank you very much for coming. I really appreciate it. So you heard it from the horse's mouth there, Professor Sukoi, Head of Voter Education at INEC, saying that it do indeed have the capacity to go ahead and transmit election results electronically. And all they're asking is for amendments in certain aspects of the constitution to go ahead and do so. But we'll see how the National Assembly eventually makes that decision. But that's it on the breakfast here today. Thank you very much for being a part of our day from 7am this morning. If you missed out on any part of our conversation, we're at Plus TV Africa everywhere on social media. Absolutely. And we wish you a very interesting Monday and a beautiful week ahead. We'll be back here again tomorrow. I am Osaldi Ogbor. And I am Annetta Felix.