Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi state may have exposed loopholes in the INECs registration afteral.
The alleged registration brings to the fore many questions bothering on the efficiency of the INEC’s system that ought to be automated and real-time.

How do we conclude this was a fresh registration since the machine did not reject governor Bello’s finger print, haven registered prior to now? Was this actually a fresh registration? Is the INEC registration systems not networked and connected to a central database with a call back mechanism? Is the INEC system not Bio-metric for Fingerprint recognition and authentication? Does the system not have the register button change to update after the first registration in case an update is needed, after verifying the authenticity of an account via finger print?

It is a common knowledge that before the 2015 gubernatorial election in Kogi state, Alhaji Yahaya Bello wrote to INEC for a transfer of his voter’s record from FCT to Kogi state ahead of the election. This effort shows clearly that the governor actually knows the process of record transfer, the question here is , has INEC actually done the said transfer as requested ?

Perhaps the likelihood that this may be the last open registration before 2019 elections is the pointer to why the governor, like every other law abiding citizen embarked on registering his data with INEC or possibly for the lackadaisical attitude of INEC to the transfer of his record to Kogi, nobody can tell except the man himself, but INEC cannot be exonerated from this issue at hand.

Looking very critically, the integrity of the INEC’s system is open to serious scrutiny. Is it truly automated? Is it real time? If No why?
A complex polity like Nigeria should run a fully automated Database Management System , one that integrity can be forced and inconsistency can be avoided.

The system could be such that would be able to conquer terrain constraint through internet access based on the clumsy Nigeria topology. It should be one that would instantly detect double finger prints and if not, facial recognition technology could also be Incorporated as a doubled layer security option.

Alas it is not despite billions of naira expended on it, it merely a standalone machine functioning alone, open to the manipulation of the people, a total failure.

There are lot of problems with the INEC’s system.
1. Cannot do not real time registration. The system can only collate data from a locality which then is taken to the sorting center for sorting within a . The question(s) is
a) What happens if the machine and data backup gets damaged or stolen on transit?
Simply put, peoples records would be lost.
However, if the machine operates realtime, connected to a centralized database with double encryption layer, it becomes so fortified that it takes an Harry portter to do a double registration.
b) Why know a challenge exist and instead of solving it, you make laws to overcome it after spending billions on the system?
2. It was established that the system cannot make more than 100 registration a day. When it does, it battery either dies or it gets unstable. Of the 100 registration captured, there is the possibility that 30% may guilty of double registration.
However, if the system is realtime, it would have saved space for persons with genuine reasons for registration and resources.
There wont be need to deploy persons and computers at sorting centers to query for duplicate entries and there would have been no need for payments of remuneration.

Does INEC have a time frame for closing of daily registration? i.e 8-4 pm. From all information gathered, the said registration took place past 5pm in the evening. A time that falls outside working hours.

Ordinarily, if the INECs system is fully automated, once its a second past the close of working hour, it refuses access to its database.
The INEC registration system is a total disaster from the set go. How many double registrations do we know has been feed into the system? If the camera man to the governor had not innocently uploaded the picture, according to him, showing the world that the governor was leading by example, would it have been discovered?

Could it be that the governor actually did the photo show to encourage kogites to go and register for there voters card? That is debate for another day. I am just trying to make common sense.


Williams Charles Oluwatoyin
Writes from
Lokoja