 And we're back with the breakfast and plus TV Africa let's continue the conversation with the reconfiguration of the bimodial voter accreditation accreditation system by the way. The ongoing reconfiguration of the bimodial voter accreditation system machine used during the presidential national assembly elections on the 25th of February will end within 24 hours. Apparently it should end by now. Now the independent national electoral commission had said that 170,000 polling units result of February 25th presidential and national assembly elections have been uploaded on its result viewing portal. And the commission had postponed the governorship and state House of assembly elections are shadowed on or shadow to hold on the 11th of March to 18th of March in order to be able to reconfigure the beavers. Now consequently all activities pertaining to the polls were rescheduled including the inspection of sensitive materials at the central bank of Nigeria by the political parties. However the reconfiguring of the beavers device also I mean continued to generate mixed reaction from Nigerians and that hasn't ended as we inch closer to the elections. We have our guest joining us this morning George Mosul Jr. Joining us from Lagos. Good morning. It's good to have you join us. He is the CEO at Black. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Yes. I'd like to ask you. I mean we see the reason why according to the Empire the state of the reason for the postponement of this election. One of it is that you can't have the beavers reconfigured within a certain time. We're just close to the election and so the argument was that that reconfiguration would need some time. And so that's the reason why the elections were postponed for the 18th so given it some time now. But orders have argued that the beavers can be reconfigured real time at the same time. So do you agree that the beavers can be reconfigured in real time without having to say we need extra day two three four five days to reconfigure the system. Thank you so much. That's a very good question. I believe that that is the case. However, the Commission did communicate across that they had been experiencing some glitches, which from what I gather. I believe would be from the IRF portal sort of consummating that data from the beavers devices. So the delay that we are currently experiencing in terms of the upload and consequently the reconfiguration of the beavers devices, I would say is most likely linked to the glitch that the INEC experienced. However, they have assured us that we will not experience, you know, the same thing in the state elections as they have been able to learn from the experience in the presidential elections to resolve some of those glitches. So we're hoping that, you know, this time around the beavers will function as it was designed to, which is to essentially upload and, you know, reconfigure itself in real time. No, but I mean, I like to get back to that again, you know, because we have spoken to a couple of peasants, we've spoken to legal practitioners, we have spoken to, you know, analysts and political pundits themselves, and we're yet to understand if what the Empire has stated as to having to postpone the election because we know the cost implication this has on the economy. And so can the beavers not be reconfigured, you know, in real time, like just immediately, just like you reformat or reset your phone, do we need like five days, 10 days to reconfigure the beavers? So when we talk about reconfiguration, we need to understand that it's basically the process of making the beavers device available again for the upcoming state elections. However, due to the design of the device itself, it will not allow itself to be reprogrammed or reconfigured until it has successfully pushed the data that had been captured in the previous election over to the online IRF portal. And I believe that this is a security mechanism that was implemented in order to preserve the integrity of the data on the beavers. So to answer your question, the reconfiguration itself, I don't think that is what is taking time. I believe because of the glitch that, you know, INEC communicated that they had been expecting with uploading the data onto the IRF portal. And since that is a requirement before the reconfiguration can happen, it sort of stands as a bit of a blocker and that I believe has constituted to the delay in the reconfiguration process itself. So contrary to what a lot of people believe, I don't think the delay has been as a result of the reconfiguration because, like you already rightly mentioned, that is something that should not take this long. However, due to the dependency of the upload needing to happen first before the devices can be reconfigured for the state elections, that is why we're experiencing some of these delays. Okay. I mean, the independent national, I would like to know the source of your information when you say, you know, that the devices, you're a tech guy, you're a tech bro, like we call it in Nigeria, and please understand why you're here. Black is a technology-driven solutions company. So you know about this stuff very well. What's the source of your information when you say that this, do you have a good account, a good authority, that these BVAS devices or machines or tablets can't be reconfigured until they push out all the information that was stored on them? That's what I'd like to know. Then what exactly is the reconfiguration? Because people are trying to understand. Some have said they want to format the tablets. And I told someone on a program some time ago that you can't put words in the mouth of anything because formatting means you're wiping the information. So do you have a good authority that this is the way it works, that you can't reconfigure the devices until you upload the information, push it to the back end server? Number two, what is this reconfiguration about? So just speak to those two questions. So to answer your first question, regarding the BVAS, we've sort of had to rely on the information that the INEC has made available to us publicly. As some of us are already aware, they have been rather particular about exposing some of the intricacies of how the BVAS technology actually works. And I believe that this is in order to protect the security layer of the device, although I have some mixed opinions about that personally. However, my source would be the information, like I said, that the INEC has made available to us publicly, which is that for the device to actually be reconfigured, it has to, first of all, move all of that data onto the IRF portal so that the Nigerian populace can be able to inspect and scrutinize the election on a polling unit level. So that's to answer your first question. My source is most likely as good as yours. However, from a technology standpoint, it is very achievable that such a mechanism will be in place. And it makes sense because if the device itself could be reconfigured at will without necessarily having to ensure that that information is moved elsewhere, then you can probably have a case of data loss which could lead to setting issues because people start assuming where the data has gone and questioning the integrity of any new data that is introduced into the space. To answer your question about what the reconfiguration entails, it is very much liking, in my opinion, to a typical device reset. You know, the Vivas, amongst others, is a data capturing device. It captures the data of the registered voters. And this is, you know, including personal information, some personal information as well as biometrics, which are utilized as verification mechanisms at the various polling units during the election. But not only that, it also captures, you know, the electoral forms that I used to record the tallies of, you know, the votes counts at the various polling units. So this reconfiguration is essentially just wiping this information from the Vivas device so that it can be used because the device, I believe, is configured in such a way that it can only record information from one election to avoid any sort of mix-up in the data from happening. You know, so that's what the reconfiguration entails, in my opinion. Just a quick follow-up to that. Does this, what can you say therefore about the fears expressed by Nigerian voters, particularly the supporters of the two opposition parties that lost the elections and their candidates who are going to court? The fears that I think is about to steal the election to change the results with this, you know, reconfiguration. People are against it. As a techie, what do you say to that, with all the information you have? I think those are very valid fears. And so in my experience, you know, running a tech company, I realized that beyond a tech solution or beyond a tech product, it's important to be as transparent with your stakeholders as much as possible. So what the Nigerian people, I believe, are having difficulty accepting is the level of transparency that has been displayed so far in the process. It's not a question of the technology itself. It's a question of the systems in place to ensure that the technologies are carrying out what we have been told they would carry out. So, I mean, if I were to make any sort of suggestion, I would strongly, you know, recommend a little bit more transparency into some of the intricacies of not just the beavers, but the entire system, you know, from the beavers capturing the data at the various polling units, you know, to it being made available on the IRF portal so that people can have their own understanding of how the system works as against having to form, you know, various opinions that lead to a lack of trust in the system itself. You know, so in technology, we have something called open source, which is essentially a mechanism or a practice where, you know, the technology is made visible or made transparent to the stakeholders or to the general public. And I believe this is very important, particularly in technologies that affect a large number of people, because you want people to be able to trust this system, this system, which is responsible for essentially determining who would run the country for the next, you know, four years. You want this system to be as transparent as possible. And, you know, even for people who may not necessarily have all of the tech experience, I believe if the information is readily available, then they can sort of fall back to, you know, the tech institutions or the private tech players such as ourselves to interpret. I think that because we're almost out of time, and so we're able to touch on that, you have spoken to, you know, the next question that I was going to raise, but however, I would like that you be more empathic on it. But just before then, I wanted to also speak up to the issue of the back end. INEC has said that they are very sure that there will be transfer of data, everything will be sent to the back end or the server as it's been called. I'd like you to speak to that, but a lot of people, just like you have mentioned, the issue of transparency, trust seemed to be the issue, and people are saying, if you have the empire, who should have, you know, transmitted the results in real time, according to the electoral laws that were put down from the polling unit, because results were not transmitted at the polling unit. This is part of the issues that we're having, and people are having doubts in the entire process and all that transpired. So I'd like you to speak to that. Do you think that they have what it takes now, technically and in all ramification, you know, to send this data to the back end, and to ensure that, you know, this data cannot be tampered with? That's on the one hand. Now another, I'd also like you to speak to our use of technology. So far, we have witnessed the introduction of technology, partial technology in the conduct of elections. And all the persons are already proposing, we need to go e-voting, that e-voting will be the solution. So do you really think the kind of system and structure that we have in Nigeria, that electronic voting, you know, would take care of all of the malpractices that were experienced and the errors in our elections? Thank you so much. So just to explain to the layman what, you know, the back end entails. The back end is essentially the parts of, you know, any application that is the most opaque, so to say, it's not very visible to, you know, non-technical persons. So as regarding the security or the trust components to it, it still boils down to how much, you know, the commission is willing to open up, like I said, to the general public as to the intricacies of this component. I believe that typically whenever the back end is, you know, made open to the general public, a non-technical person may not necessarily be able to make much of an opinion on that. You know, so they might have to sort of rely on the private or independent technical experts to be able to sort of make meaning of those informations. So answer your other question about the, you know, whether the data will not be tampered with. The beavers is designed in such a way that it should discourage this as much as possible. So, since you sort of have to upload the data before the device can be reconfigured, it really encourages that, you know, once even after the device is moved from, you know, the polling in its country to a lot of popular opinions, it does not necessarily affect the trust factor. The voting data that has been captured can still, you know, be uploaded even at that point to the IRF portal. So the fact that unfortunately we were not able to have a, you know, a case where this data was uploaded in real time does not negate the trust factor. I don't know if I'm making sense. It does not really negate that trust factor, provided that, you know, the commission ensures that the data that was captured at the various polling units is what is, you know, uploaded onto the back end and made available via the IRF portal. Then we shouldn't have, you know, any issues whatsoever. So as regards your second question about the, you know, application of technology in the electoral process, I mean, being a tech person, I might be considered a bit biased on this. I believe that tech is the only way to go as regards the voting practice that we have, especially in this part of the world. And the truth is that tech sort of introduces the potential for transparency. And there are lots of technological sort of methods that we can employ to ensure that, you know, once voting is done, everybody can sort of have access to that information in real time. I don't really have that with a non-technical solution because there has to be, you know, the voting data captured on, you know, physical voting materials and then moved over to a collision center where all of this data is aggregated and, you know, so on and so forth. And it leaves a lot of room for election malpractice and, you know, possible disruption in the election process. As against if we had a system that would, and I understand that the beavers were supposed to help introduce this level of real time transparency. You know, technology has actually progressed, you know, to the point where we can actually have it even more real time, you know, and people can be able to even use mobile apps and virtually authenticate themselves on their mobile apps and votes directly from, you know, from their homes. It's possible with technology. And I think this will drastically reduce any sort of disbelief or distrust in the system because, you know, people sort of can see how the system works. There's more transparency to it. And, you know, the Commission can even go a step further to make some of the codes or the architectures of these systems, you know, open source available to the general public so that technical experts can be able to scrutinize even give suggestions, you know, on some of the things that can be employed. I believe that if the system we had now was open source, you know, the chances that an independent expert or a party somewhere would have probably been able to identify. We don't know if you can hear us, George. I'm sorry. We have a lot to talk about. We don't know if you can hear us. A quick one. Yeah, quick one. If you were to advise the political parties, the People's Democratic Party and the Labor Party, I'm not saying you should give free advice, but generally speaking, they have been given leave by the court to go inspect the sensitive election materials and people expect that the beavers will form part of this. How should they go about that? Because, as we speak yesterday, the head of voter education at the Independent National Electoral Commission, Faisal Koye says that the political parties will not be allowed to look at the cloud, look at my next cloud or look at the IRF or look into the brain of the beavers. Now, he says that they have their agents have the results sheets. So how can they go about this very quickly, very briefly in a sentence or two to be able to verify the results? Just to keep it short, in summary, it has to be end to end from the beavers device itself up until the portal. I'm not clear on the extent to which INEC is willing to open up some of these intricate information to the political parties. However, I will suggest that it has to be end to end every step of, you know, the flow of data from the point where it was captured, which is the beavers device. And as well as the, yes, the beavers device essentially, you know, as well as the IRF portal and everything in between. There has to be a lot of diligence put into the scrutiny of the flow of data. George, thank you very much. George Mosul Jr. is Chief Executive Officer, or as he likes to put it, Chief Servant at Black Technology Driven Solutions Company. He joined us from Ligas, where we are. George, thank you for your time. We look forward to having you again soon. Thank you very much. All right then. Well, that's the size of our conversation this morning on the breakfast. 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