 You're welcome back. With seven to five days to the 2023 elections, the all-progressive Congress APC appears to be uncomfortable with the insistence by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to deploy by model voter accreditation system, BEVAS, and the INEC election results viewing portal for the elections. Both the BEVAS and the IRV were introduced by the electoral body to promote the credibility of the electoral process. BEVAS is a technological device used to identify an accredited voter's fingerprints and facial recognition before voting. The device is also used for capturing images of the polling unit result sheet from EC8A and uploading the image of the result sheet online. IRV, on the other hand, is an online portal where polling unit level results are uploaded directly from the polling unit transmitted and published for the public. At the front end of the online portal, members of the public can create personal accounts with which they can gain access to all uploaded results stored as PDF files. And that means it's a strategic move to make sure that no voting can be done by people who should not be done and people who should do the voting actually get the voting done. A recent statement by the National Chairman of the APC, Senator Adamo Abdulahi, may have justified Igini's claims. Adamo said he expressed strong reservations over the deployment of modern technology in the next year's general election and that's the concern that we have today. The APC chairman made this views known when he received a delegation from the Commonwealth pre-election team at the National Secretariat of the Party in Abuja and he was of the opinion that the federal government was yet to give Nigerians stable electricity adding that it would be a gamble to allow electronic transmission of results. And that's what we are discussing today. How beavers and IRV has unsettled parties and a game changer heading to the 2023 election. And so we have joining us to discuss this, Mr. Charles O'Toole, political analyst and also Mr. Abiodun Shoumi. Gentlemen, welcome to the run-up. Okay, good morning. Let me start with Mr. Shoumi. There seem to be, even though we are restricting ourselves now to the APC, but these beavers and IRV seem to have upset the political terrain as it were. Why do you think that is? Mr. Shoumi, please. I understand even the nature of our infrastructure, particularly psychological infrastructure within the country. A country where you want to make a call, you can end up having to try two, three times in some parts of the country. While at times you sell the data, it does not go get through in time and you know, you keep waiting for it to deliver. So we have infrastructures that would, the technology that will underpin what the beavers seems to be resting on the weak infrastructure. So therefore, anybody, not just the APC, should be concerned about it. Let me give you a good example. The current ongoing case in the tribunal in Ocean State, where the former governor, Uye Tola, is challenging the victory of the current governor, Adelike, Jackson Adelike of the PDP. One of the things claimed, the deposition of INEC itself, not APC, not PDP, is that the first results they announced that it didn't contain the full accreditation information which issued that it failed to upload in full. This has been submitted to the tribunal. And you can then imagine why people will not be worried about it. And that led INEC into first satisfying a result, satisfying the details of beavers for APC, which they used to file. In the case only for INEC to come back and say, no, we have just completed. The whole system has just been uploaded. We are submitting a new one. And the tribunal is saying on which one they used to announce the result. Of course they won't give in to APC. So you can see the confusion, the problem from day one. And that should be very worrying and concerning not only to APC, to all political parties. Number two is what nobody has tested. There will be variations in the performance of beavers. In these rural areas, we are likely going to have delayed transmission of results. And we are likely going to have more problems as witnessed during when they use it for accreditation in the Anambra State election. They witnessed a similar thing. So Anambra State is also a good example where people, for instance, in Inewi, Luka Gumentaria, they have major problems. In a family of five, only one person managed to get through at the same unit, when in reality that they only have two beavers passing for the whole of Inewi Luka Gumentaria. I understand and I know the problem of the IPOC which militated against them. But that is not what affected the technology. So there are genuine concerns. You may have a situation, for instance, where in Lagos, the beavers perform excellently. Delivering 95 percent. And then you now go to somewhere, say, for instance, in Boronu, in Plato, or somewhere else. And then you have 50 percent accreditation. So what would be the average percentage that would be acceptable for beavers to beavers? Because currently, what I like to say is that no matter the situation, it is only beavers and nothing else. That is good. The intention is good. The intention is to eliminate fraud. But that does not mean that we should not look at the problems which has been thrown up by the use of beavers currently, like in the case of Osho State, and the problem they encountered in Anambra State. This is a wider election which will involve the open trade. And we need to make sure that the process is credible. Ineq needs to make sure that they have a reliable infrastructure. And they cannot guarantee that it is only NCC. NCC has made it very clear that it is their responsibility to guarantee the technology to deliver whatever Ineq wants to achieve. So we need to get both agencies to cooperate, and reassure the country that there will not be any problem. Otherwise, we will face major claims that beavers was used to reduce the discourse of people outside city centers to the advantage of the ruling party or one party or the other. And that is not what we want. The election will not be seen to be free, fair, and credible. Mr Ohtu, I would like to hear your thoughts as well before we move on to other matters. Thank you very much. I listened very kindly to my brother. His postulation on the general note, his fears on the general note may seem founded, but there is something very peculiar about technology. And that is the need for constant improvement until the issues regarding the staggered elections in Annabra, Aikiti, and Ocean State. Nigeria never contemplated that there was a possibility for the improvements Anneq has made on the electoral system, generally, including the introduction of beavers technology. People didn't believe it was possible. Now, where I differ very substantially with Mr Ohtu is the fact that if you are deploying this technology, just like your MTA network, your other networks that came in in the early 2000s, and it has witnessed significant improvement just within a period of less than two decades, or about two decades, brother, you cannot say, you cannot take away the fact that it is because it is in use that there were rooms for improvements. Now, if you look at, generally, the fears expressed by APC and different other parties, about network issues, a lot of that, you will be wondering whether this really should be the case. These same individuals, these same stakeholders, stay in the rural areas. They no longer carry money about. They do electronic transfer of money. They perform other functions that technology has afforded the nation and Nigeria's to perform. So why is it that in the case of determining the effects of over 200 million Nigerians, it now becomes so problematic there are 179,000, over 179,000 units across the country. If you record success in about 160,000 or 150,000 out of this unit, 150,000 out of this unit, whatever are the shortfalls can be remedied, and it's not acting as if they are not oblivious of the fact that, look, Nigeria is befitted with all manner of electronic technological challenges, network issues, and that is why they have said, look, we are going to run this election. And it's not going to be like the normal election where you just have a day, like Nigerians have had it. You just have a day, you say it's over. If there are areas or places that will be need for improvement, INAC is going to study them. And elections can hold in those places when those issues that would have cropped up may have been resolved or sorted out. Now, for me, the fear should be that we did not try this technology at all. The fear should be that Nigerians looked the other way and just said, oh, because we don't have networks in all the villages in the country, we didn't deploy the opportunities, or we didn't have those opportunities supported us by beavers. What is this beavers and the idea about? Beavers just have to do with by moderate voter accreditation, that it is no more an error where you now cannot reconcile the number of ballot papers given to the number of ballot papers cast on election day, because accreditation failed. With beavers, you have all that, so many other husbands, facial recognition, thumbprinting, and all of this technology, like I witnessed it during the Ann Arbor election, does not take time. If there are hitches that are widespread, we can come back. I want Nigerians, they say, perspective, I want Nigerians to see this election. It is about the fate of Nigeria in the next four to eighties, because politicians hardly do four years this time. Anybody who goes in there wants to stay there for the next eighties, whether as a governor or as a president. Is this national assembly member, is this not important enough that we can even devote a time and say, if there are after 179,000 people in this across the country, if we can get it right in 100,000, and we can defer elections to the next day or next few periods, last a couple of weeks, to make sure that we use the opportunities supported us by this technology and get credible candidates elected across board. Wouldn't that have solved the problem for Nigerians? That is what I'm thinking, that this device, the IRF, for instance, on the other hand, has to do with monitoring the results that originates from the polling units. What that will solve is that in the case of Fortune for instance, I didn't like I knew he was leading the election. Even with some local governments not being turned in in Auschwitz State, I didn't like I knew that with the results that have been monitored in the portal of INEC, the party was already in a clearly, all the issues are reports of shortfalls of the system, notwithstanding. What is good is that you can be sure of what is going on across the polling units just by logging into the INEC portal. We can improve on this, my dear brother. That's what I think. You've gone ahead to mention all the advantages that comes with the beavers and the IRF in a situation where it is actually successful. But then we've had other elections happen in the past where these systems of electronic transmission were tried out. Looking at 2023 coming up, do you think that these things put together and probably solved? Do you see it being successful in 2023? Yes. I believe strongly that if we are able to record 60 to 70 percent success, the nation is already having an A and it can be improved in subsequent elections. Where did we start from? We remember that in this country there was a time we had an option A for election in 1993 and it was judged the most fairest and the threeest elections, even though the acclaimed winner did not take out of office. That is the late MQA Abuela. If we have moved from that in 1993 to the 1999 election, to the 2003, 2007, 2011 elections, to 2015, and we are now in an era where even smaller countries with lesser funding, with lesser electoral funds, are not thinking about technologies that can enhance theirs. I believe that the 2023 election, if we put our hearts to it like I said earlier, commit ourselves to the fact that look, we can spread this election the whole of March and even April and get it right across the national assembly, across the 28th out of the 36 states where elections will be holding, elections will be holding, and then the presidential election, it is what the energy, the time, and the resources Nigeria is investing in it. And I don't want us to throw the baby away with the bathwater because within the diverse, the IRF, IRF technology will be unfavorable to some percentage of political parties or some part of the country. We've seen how even the network providers have improved over the years. The MTA network for climate is less than two decades, or just about two decades in Nigeria. And we've seen how it's been improved. If elections are run on a four-eight-year cycle, it means that when we're talking about elections in the year 2050 for instance, where some of us may have grown so old, we could get to the point where like in the American system, it is no more people can pick their cards and cast their ballots whenever they wish and then go about their normal business. That is where we should be aiming instead of not trying at all. That's what I think. Instead of not trying at all, it's the optimism for me. I like that you are very optimistic. Let me go to Mr. Xiaomi. Yes, the concerns you expressed, or the position you took, that people who are concerned about what might happen are doing so justified. But we have from now till the 25th of February. And for a technology that has been tried in Oshun, Ekiti, and Anambra, shouldn't this be a good time enough for INEC to put its house in order and learn the lessons that they need to learn to make sure that this technology works? Should we still be afraid until the time of election? Yes. I listen to Charles and I like his optimism and I wish things can work out the way he thinks. He's ignoring the fact that it's not a wish. Election is guarded by the electoral act. The electoral act stipulated that all the elections must take place at the same time. So the idea of having a staggered election, presidential election, is not going to happen. I said to change the law. It is too late to change the electoral act. We need to understand that. The second issue is that we are also failing to take account of the fact that we only have less than 80 million Nigerians. Actually, they're talking about 67 million who have internet access. That will tell you that the infrastructures, by these I mean masks, to deliver data and telephone services to people, are only concentrated in areas where these 65 to 80 million people live. So what happens to the vast majority of the people, 120 million Nigerians, living in the rural areas, in the barren areas and in the thick forest? How would they get involved in that very process in a way that the vast will also work for them, like it will work for us in the city? Again, we are also ignoring one fact, the confusion and the suspicion and the allegations that will arise if we are to go by what happened in Osho. In Osho State, and I repeat, please go and read the INEC submission and the submission of APC and PDP before the tribunal. The case is still alive. INEC is saying that the Biva's accreditation evidence, which they satisfied and gave to APC, which APC used and discovered that they were over-butting internal local governments in a way that if the Electoral Act is complied with, which clearly stipulated that we are the votes and more than the number of Biva's accredited, then the results should be cancelled. That if the law is applied, then Adeliki would not have been declared, but each other will have been declared as the government. And that is precisely why they are in court. And this case is still on. And we are likely going to have, if we create a situation where in some areas you have maybe 10, 20 million voters, badly affected out of two possible 80 million voters, what would happen? Are you going to declare results without taking account of the polling of those 20 million voters? Because we should not forget that people of the same franchise or people who are not able to vote using the Biva's, if the Biva's fail to work in the rural areas and the Bahrain areas, their numbers must not exceed the margin of victory of any of the candidates. It will lead us to a new round of trouble. Don't forget the 2019 elections. Artiku came up, the PDP candidate in that election came up with his own electronically transmitted results. And this went to the Tribunal, which eventually was rejected. So there are still a lot of uncertainty. What I am saying is, I am not saying we should reject Biva's. No, we have to use Biva's. But we must accept the limitations of Biva's given the level of a technological infrastructural development in the country. We must take account of people in the rural areas, people in the river Rhine areas, so that their votes also will count. We must make sure that they are able to vote. We cannot have an excuse that Biva's fail to function. Meanwhile, Aineka said that you cannot use any other means. So what basically means is that if Biva's fail to work in any area, all the people in that area will not vote. That is my own concern. And that is what I think Aineka needs to look at. How will they be able to ensure efficient and effective Biva's system when people are doing accreditation? Do not forget that the responsibility is not just Aineka. It's NCC that claims they have full responsibility for that. And even then, I doubt it, because NCC will not buy the mast. It's the private telecom operators that will buy the mast, install them and link them to their system, so that we can have an improved technological infrastructure. So basically, what I am saying is that we still need to have more debates while we are implementing Biva's. Have more debates, engage also the private sector partners in these debates, and look at solutions to some of these foreseeable problems. That is the point I'm making. All right. You just mentioned how that if the Biva's fails at certain areas, like the river line areas and the rural areas, people are going to be disenfranchised, and that also means that their numbers will be lost. Before and now, where we used to have, like if I'm to use the word, analogue elections, people go out to vote. And there's been a lot of cases of situations where people do not even see electoral materials. They do not see INEC staff. They don't see anything. And elections come and go, and people get into power, and life goes on. What I'm trying to say, where I'm going to with that is, do you not think that these conversations coming up in different quarters, especially among political parties, is so that INEC's efforts into trying to curb votes buying, to curb electoral misdoings, is cut down to the low. Because, I mean, they've put in efforts, they've brought up these technological innovations, and they're trying to put it in practice, and they've made their reasons clear. And the people who are directly affected, who in fact should be excited and applaud in these innovations, are actually making these conversations and trying to make life difficult for both Nigerians and the electoral empire. Do you not think that these people are actually trying, you know, putting in their best effort to make sure that we don't have the credible election that we all look forward to come 2023? How do you react to that? Yeah, INEC don't doubt about it. INEC has been working very, very hard, you know, to ensure that the process and the results of elections are credible, they are free, they are fair, and they are judged soon, not only by international observance, but also seen by fellow Nigerians as no creditor. They have a huge volume of knowledge spreading into, since 1999, in conducting elections in the country, and we've been trying to improve the system one way or the other. But this is the farthest we have gone so far. I admit, and I'm sure INEC should be applauded, you know, for the efforts, you know, being made true, be vast, to call votes, what do they call it, to cut a vote rigging and snatching up ballot boxes and all that. Those ones would be things of the past. We've seen a reduction in that since 2019. But I agree, musty needs to be done. But the fact of the matter is, when it comes to this very particular new technology, my own worry is more about the election appearing to be credible. At the end of the day, if one candidate wins, and then another candidate with strong support in rural areas, or in the different areas, this is the election, that will spark another round of claim that INEC conspired to ensure that those machines will not work. This is Nigeria, this is our people thing. But rather than allow for that, my own submission is that, is it not better for INEC to assess the state of technology, the infrastructure in the country, and then agree that, look, maybe in 60% of the country, where the infrastructure is good, be vast will apply. In areas where we have weak infrastructure to support be vast, then they would have to look at another alternative means of ensuring that Nigerians are not decentralized. I don't know what the solution is. I'm saying that the conversation must go on, and it must involve not only NCC, it must also involve the private sector providers of telecommunications in Nigeria, because they are also critical stakeholders. If they don't provide the masks, there is no way NCC will not go and buy masks and connect it for them. So they are very, very important stakeholders. So I am saying that we need to engage all of them in this conversation, in this debate, about the state of our technology and our readiness to ensure that be vast work. Be vast must not be thrown into the bin. No, it's a big improvement. It's a big step forward, but we have to make sure that be vast not only works in the river and in the villages and works for all Nigerians. That is the point Okay, I'm glad that both of you gentlemen agree to the fact that be vast is good, and if it has come to stay, it should stay. I've seen all your concerns, but there are there are two things here, just like Uche was asking that is it not possible that some some people are just doing this so that they can use Nigerian word for it is magu magu. I like that more than any other word that the English can have. Yes, but we are like, it's either we we are supposed to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea, which means they are at par, the good and the bad are the same, or we are thinking about a greater or lesser evil. Because on the one hand, if the be vast work, maybe some people will be disenfranchised. Now, if they also give room for other forms of accreditation, it's also a possibility that the people that will vote will not even be the right people to vote. And there would be a lot of malpractice within the election. So we might be left with just the choice of choosing whether some people will be disenfranchised, but the majority of the people, especially the ones living in the crowded areas of the city, get to vote, or we let the people who are not supposed to vote to come and vote. For instance, like the underage voters that they were talking about and all that, the explanation Ina gave me gave, I wasn't comfortable about it. But hey, what do I know? So if we were to choose, do we choose a greater or lesser evil, which one will be greater and which one will be a lesser evil? Because it might come to that. Do we use be vast or do we abandon be vast? What do we need to choose as Nigerians at this time that we are going into 2023? Let me begin with you, Mr. Otu. Thank you very much. You see, the concern you raised is, Mr. Otu and me did very well to, you know, raise a fresh some of these fears and the concerns. Yes, they are genuine, they are genuine, they are consensual, and they are completely awake. On a day-to-day basis, we see it sometimes, they beat you, like they debited me the other day, I went to the first joint welfare and the money was not reversed. I even called my bank, even when they reversed it, I wasn't credited. I just noticed I didn't transfer. Expecting money was, money had gone out, and you know, behold, I now saw that I had more money than was in my account, which means it was later reversed. Now, our concern, like you have pointed out, is that we shouldn't go from the bad to the, we shouldn't go from the bad to the ugly. Even if we go from the bad, the ugly to the bad, and then we move to attempted good. I think for me, it will be a fair deal. The concern raised by Mr. Shou, me about the election being tied to a day and all of that, why those postulations may be correct. The fact also remains that the Electoral Act also has given the INEC the flexibility to adjust, like you see the Electoral Act saying for instance that it is no more an era where you can come and shoot in a pulling unit, cut away the ballot papers, and then they will say, no, let's overlook that area. The result there is significant. Like it happened in here at the local government in Anambra, where I was covering the election with my team. We noticed they came back the next day, brought all the pulling units to the centralised area, some schools, about four schools in the local government, and asked the voters to go there. They provided enough security. On one day, the election that started on Saturday was concluded. I was part of the system and I could say that what the Electoral Act has done is to make the system flexible. The effect of 200 million Nigerians in the next eight years, four to eight years, is more important than anything. And I don't want to contemplate or conjecture a system whereby we will begin to contemplate, oh, let's do work to use the rural areas and then do 60% of work, use 60% to do what fits those in the city. We are still giving them to the same manipulations that the Electoral Act has tried to cure. I am saying that if there are no networks in those areas and we do elections in those areas, there are networks. We can try technologies, things that can, we can begin to think, okay, let's even partner with NCCC. Can you tell us the percentage of places where there are these network hitches across the 179,640 something pulling this across the country? If we are saying, oh, let's just focus on places and sectors of the country and then leaving the other section to their fate, you are still telling the politicians that they can look, look, they can go to the rural areas and manipulate the system with the analogue accreditation system that had made it impossible to reconcile the number of accredited voters with even the number of actual registrants in the particular order pulling in it. In a voice state, for instance, you have 171 electoral votes and you have a total of 2,497 pulling in it. Now, if you check the percentage of rural populace there as it were, you will find out that it is almost insignificant. It is across the 2,497 pulling in it, you can almost say that you are sure that there could be network in about 2,000 pulling in it. So if you have network in 2,000 pulling in it, then the other number is not likely very significant to alter what could have been the overall outcome of an election in the state. That's my own thinking. I do know too that there are more network challenges in a place like Niger, for instance, or northern states that have large expanse of lands, that have a very large square kilometers of lands that can be separated almost like you can do four or five hours from the capital city to the next senatorial district. These are the concerns that INEC and NCC come to say, oh, in these areas, we are looking at what can mitigate the shortfalls and then they can begin to hold conversations on how this can be done. Let's not also tie our minds to saying, oh, once on the 25th of February, once we are done with the presidential election, we are done with it. It didn't happen that way in Anambra. It didn't happen that way in other areas where there were challenges. We can spread this election and make sure that we use this period of February, March, and even a prayer next year to fix those who can be responsible and accountable to us in the next eight years. I mean, it is not a big deal. Yeah, Mr. Tu, I quite appreciate the way you're talking. The concern of Mr. Shouwami was that the Electoral Act needs to be amended before this kind of a thing can be done that you're proposing. And I quite agree with him. There's no time to do the amendment. But let me go to Mr. Shouwami now. Mr. Tu has chosen his own lesser evil, just briefly now, because I was asking the lesser evil or the greater evil. His own lesser evil is that we take the risk and make sure that the bimodal voter's accreditation is used, the B-verse is used. And if some people are disenfranchised, it would not be as bad as if we let the system be such that it can be manipulated by this political class. So maybe I just come to you to choose your own lesser evil. Let us know if you agree with him or if you don't agree with him very fast before we wrap up. Mr. Shouwami. Okay, my own lesser evil is that B-verse should be used. I will fully support the use of B-verse, but I still think that there is a room to do an audit trail, you know, of defects in our technological infrastructure in the country. It is not too late. And I think that INEC needs to work with NCC and the private operators with the deal to reduce the defective areas in the country. It's not too late. We still have a little over two months. You can install a mask in different places that get people, you know, improve on the telecommunication. It may mean that the pedagogical the NCC would need to come to the heat or to support the telecom operators or to give them some kind of tax debate, you know, to provide those facilities. I don't think it's too late. We can still improve more on them so that we do not end up in a situation where a significant chunk of Nigerian voters are disenfranchised simply because B-verse failed them. That is all I am saying. I will go, B-verse is the least of all the evils and is better. We need to start using it. We need to try and eliminate the concerns of the APC chairman, the concerns of other party apparatus, you know, in the country who are worried one way or the other. We cannot replace wanting to stop rigging while at the same time, electoral practices, while at the same time, you know, replacing it with something that will undermine the credibility of the electoral process. In this case, B-verse is good, but let us do a little bit more, you know, extensive work to reduce the problem areas. That's my solution. Okay. To err on the side of caution, as they say. Well, like you've said, at least you guys have agreed that B-verse is good enough. But I also agree with you that even if some people will be disenfranchised, let the people know that an effort was made and when it got to where it got to, it wasn't because the country just felt that they didn't matter, because that would be very insensitive. Well, thank you, Mr. Abiodou, for showing me and Mr. Charles O'Too for coming on the program and sharing your thoughts. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Abiodou. Okay. Two political analysts. I'm glad they agreed, at least, that the less are evil. I mean, who wouldn't agree? Well, there are people who wouldn't agree, actually. I think those are the problems that we have in this country. Well, they may not know that they are the problems. I mean, how can you look at a system like B-verse and not want to try it out? He gave a very good example of how the telecommunication companies came into Nigeria and it wasn't so stable. But we're getting somewhere. People, at some point, two years ago, two, three years ago, people were complaining so much about the internet data and I don't hear so much of those complaints these days. And that is because something has been done and we keep improving. And I feel like that is what the situation would be. You know, that question I asked Mr. Charles O'Too, it came from a place of having lived through different years of elections in Nigeria, excuse me, and hearing the complaints. A lot of people do not vote at all. Why? Because they did not see electoral, INEC staff, they did not see electoral materials. In fact, it's as if nothing has even happened in their own village. Some actually see the materials. I don't know where they end up. I've seen cases where an entire election was done in a room. I've seen cases where an entire election for a award was done in a bush. I've seen things. So if you have experiences like this and you hear of beavers, you will jump on it and say it is good. But what are the people who are benefiting from non-beavers if I might use that? They know that the system without technology benefits them. These people might not be happy with the rest. Actually, I think I'm going to end this way. I'm hoping that INEC is listening. Congratulations guys. You people are doing an amazing job, but I'm hoping that you guys are able to continue improving. You know, I think it was last week that Bayer was saying how that INEC offices shouldn't be locked for any reason, only to reopen after every four years. No, this is the reason INEC offices should remain open. These things work on your table. You need time to improve things like beavers. Exactly. Do more elections. Do whatever you need to do, but you need time to do that. And that means you need to come to work every day like every other regular worker in Nigeria to be able to get things done. Kudos to you INEC, but please after 2023 elections, maybe sometime in May, June, because you need time to recoup and rest, reopen your offices and get work done. Yeah. Don't just meet in court with people who may have been the offenders of the... Anyway, let's take another break now. And this time is for us to bring you the news. And after the news, we continue our discussions before we wrap up on the show. Stay with us.