Tunde Fagbenle: How feasible is ‘high-tech election rigging’?
Opinion on July 20, 2014 10:00 am /
by Tunde Fagbenle

Our pre-election reading, erroneous now we know, was that Fayose was a less acceptable face than Dr. Kayode Fayemi throughout the length and breadth of Ekiti.
No sooner the shocking result of the Ekiti election was released than curious minds began to wonder beyond the now rather facile and inadequate “stomach infrastructure” explanation. The alert keeps coming, and now with the state of Osun governorship election round the corner, it has become more importunate — the probability that some high-tech rigging stratagem was deployed in the Ekiti election should not be dismissed casually. Indeed, it is real, say proponents of the theory.
Dr. Femi Orebe, columnist on The Nation newspaper, was the first to hit me with it by email within a few days of the Ekiti election. The PDP, he argues, practically signed, sealed and delivered”the election to themselves, via some devil-may-care, Israeli conspiracy, as some politicians did last year in Zimbabwe.” He then went on to allege that “a shadowy Israeli company — NIKUV Projects International, also operating in Nigeria, was used to pre-programme the ballot paper for the (Zimbabwe) country’s 2013 presidential election.”
Femi Orebe went further to send a link to a Zimbabwean newspaper and to quote a critical portion of the story by Nasini CEO, Lucia Mordi, inter alia: “From our findings so far, we are 99.9 per cent convinced the election was rigged via a ballot paper. A special watermarked ballot paper was used to give President Mugabe a resounding victory. The ballot paper had a water X against Mugabe’s name such that if any ink is placed on the paper, the substance on the paper will react and remove the ink and activate the watermarked X into print.”
My immediate reaction to Orebe’s alert was to wave it off as rather outlandish, especially as he has never minced words about being an APC sympathiser or card-carrying member. C’mon bad loser, I had thought, give me another one! The point is, the ‘theory’, if pursued, opened up a number of other questions begging to be reconciled, beside the (conceited) point that Nigeria is not Zimbabwe — we are by far larger and ‘more educated’ in population.
One, it is conventional political wisdom in Nigeria that rigging has a higher probability of succeeding only where the rigger is already as popular, if not more popular, than the opposition. Our pre-election reading, erroneous now we know, was that Fayose was a less acceptable face than Dr. Kayode Fayemi throughout the length and breadth of Ekiti. Two, there was the result in Fayemi’s polling unit where he scored virtually 100 per cent (less a single vote!) of the about 180 votes. Were the ballot papers served to that unit particularly and peculiarly free from sexing? Three, could any such elaborate technological defrauding happen or succeed without the knowledge and complicity of our ‘saint’ Prof. Jega?
But the thing to do was not to have dismissed it offhand like that. Outlandish things, nay, far more outrageous things, have happened in Nigeria. Indeed, the more unthinkable a thing is, the more probability that some crazy leader in Nigeria would attempt it — so long as it is retrogressive and anti-people! And to continue to believe that Nigeria is any better than a “banana republic” is to live in a fool’s paradise! Just look at our leaders, just look at our country, just look at where we are! But I digress.
Importantly, a new scientific study, copy of which result came into my possession a few days ago, reveals the ease with which some advanced technology could enable ballot papers to be sexed such that the result, regardless of actual voting, can be predetermined! “It is feasible technologically,” says the report, “through a combination of invisible and disappearing inks. It is simple: use invisible ink to cast vote for a political party or preferred candidate to win, and provide disappearing inks to the voters to use for voting.” The report went on to illustrate pictorially, three sequences, one showing the voter thumbprint with disappearing ink, then ink disappearing on all candidates, and three, finally the intended winner emerging when the invisible ink reveals later under room-temperature heat!
As I said, even conceding that it is technologically feasible, the complexity of the process and the challenge for secrecy all down the line, from Jega to the electoral officers and beyond, fill me with trepidation – and sadness; trepidation that it is possible, sadness that it is conceivable in my country Nigeria in this age when the rest of the world is struggling for advancement. And we wonder why we are known as a 419 country?
The Osun state election is nigh, and the running theme nationally, rightly or wrongly, is of a Jonathan-led PDP on the rampage, doing what the party historically (from Obasanjo time) does best: impeaching the impeach-able; intimidating the intimidate-able; sacking the sack-able; corrupting the corrupt-able; and generally at their best in ‘war’ (other than at the Sambisa forest), not giving a hoot what happens to anyone or indeed the country.
What the country needs sorely is peace and progress. Nothing must be done to disturb this wherever Nigerians are lucky to have it going. As the newly formed “Voter-Values Volunteers” urge, voters in the state of Osun in 2014, and all over Nigeria in 2015 must be ready to cast their votes, and make their votes count as best they could. We must not surrender our country to those who do not care if heavens fall to have their way. And may he who will serve our collective interest best win.
And that’s saying it the way it is!
Chief Ajibola Ogunshola turns 70!
On July 14, former chairman of PUNCH Nigeria Ltd turned 70. It is a great achievement in itself in a country like ours where average life expectancy is put at somewhere between 40 and 45. He is to be celebrated.
I think my first meeting with him was in 1984 (30 years ago!) when he was CEO of Niger Insurance and I went to him to seek his company’s advert patronage in the maiden edition of Nigeria BANKING ANNUAL my company, Alfa Communications Limited, was set to publish.
Three things struck: his easy accessibility to someone he had not met before; his geniality; his brilliance. Did I say three? Well, four, his good looks (which he is not disinclined to humorously count)! We got on well and I can’t recall why, but, of course, I am better looking even if he is my egbon by three years!
I learnt within the space of that meeting he was the first Actuary in Nigeria, if not Africa — a discipline I knew little of prior to then. I learnt he was a Government College, Ibadan old boy even though I let him know my Kiriji Memorial College, Igbajo was a brighter college in our then Western Region — at least we beat them once in Olowu Cup Table-tennis competition! I learnt he was a man of integrity — in a country where that is at a discount. And I saw him as a great role model, realising little then how our paths would meet even more closely in future.
Although I knew Chief Ogunshola’s brother, the founding chairman of PUNCH, late Chief Olu Aboderin, independently, and I had relationship with PUNCH prior to Ogunshola becoming the chairman, his appreciation of my little contribution to PUNCH through my columns was gracious and encouraging.
More importantly, a few years after the death of Chief Olu Aboderin and that of his successor, elder brother Chief Moyo Aboderin, (sibling) fate brought it upon egbon Jibola to take over chairmanship of the then dying newspaper. That Ogunshola not only revived the newspaper but lifted it to the dizzying height of perhaps the most successful newspaper in Nigeria (certainly the most widely read demographically) today is a feat etched in gold in the annals of the industry.
I salute thee!