A Nation of Server Errors -By Joshua Ogbonna

….In an unexpected series of actions on the 14th of May, days after the raging controversy had started about JAMB’s software glitch, the body released a seven-page response to address the issue tagging it “Man Proposes, God Disposes”. In addition to JAMB’s solemnization of its defective product, Prof Ishaq Oloyode, lacrimation provided a legitimization for JAMB’s failure as God’s disposition. God, it would seem, takes sadistic delight in Nigeria’s rapid descent into guided inefficiency…..

After the 2019 general elections, the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar approached the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) chaired by the Justice  Zainab Bulkachuwa, President of the Appeal Court, with a cache of evidence suggesting he had won the election. In the evidence, tendered by lead lawyer, Dr. Levi Uzoukwu, Atiku claimed to have polled a total of 18,356,732 votes against Muhammadu Buhari of the APC’s 16,741,430 votes.

In their submission, a state-to-state computation revealed that the 15,191,847 votes for Buhari and Atiku 11,262,978 declared by INEC were incorrect. To prove this, Atiku’s witness, David Njorga, a Kenyan ICT expert, relied on a third-party server (website: www.factsdontlieng.com) to prove that the PDP’s candidate was supposed to have been declared the winner of the election at the first instance.

Whether Atiku and the PDP were right in 2019, the 2023 election gave many right-thinking Nigerians a cause to worry especially with INEC reneging on its promise to transmit the results of the election in real time through the novel Election Viewing Portal (iREV). On August 6th, 2020, the Independent National Electoral Commission introduced iREV, a real-time election result viewing portal, to complement the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS). Both technologies were to improve on the election process from accreditation to collation, making the final announcement of results easier and believable.

To Nigerians, the ease of election has never been the issue as many Nigerians would go through the pain to vote for their preferred candidates. The major hitch in all this has been the credibility of election and both the BVAS and iREV provided an opportunity for INEC to redeem itself and the impression it has created over the years as unreliable. In announcing iREV as a game changer, Mr. Festus Okoye, INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, assured the listening public and voters that the introduction of iREV was to “further strengthen its election management process and enhance transparency of the system”. There, the commission made the promise to flag off the use of iREV in the Nasarawa Central State Constituency bye-election in Nasarawa State to fill the void created by the death of Hon. Adamu Suleiman Ibrahim.

According to YIAGA Africa, the election in Nasarawa was conducted with strict compliance with the COVID-19 protocol at the time, however the focus was on iREV’s performance especially, its deployment in the upcoming off-cycle governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states later that year. While the Nasarawa state constituency by-election was without noticeable incidents, per iREV, the Edo and Ondo elections came with a barrage of complaints across party lines. If the gubernatorial elections in those states were the stress test, INEC’s invention of iREV proved to be disturbing and a deviation from the main issue plaguing our elections.

In YIAGA Africa’s report, on the election day, as at 7pm, results from 176,606 polling units where the election took place in Edo were still expected on INEC’s portal giving room to questions whether the INEC commissioner at the time, Mr. Okoye did understand what the word “real time” meant or it was another case of careless use of words among Nigerian politicians and professionals. Well, INEC did apologize for the delay much later. And with this, a common precedent for what we are seeing today with Nigerian institutions whenever that fails with basic technological operations was set.

In Ondo, the problems were heightened more than what we saw from the Edo election. Maybe it was spoken more about because the ruling party won in Ondo as opposed to Edo where the opposition party and incumbent governor had won. As is common with Nigerian elections whenever the opposition loses it, it becomes a very flawed election but a transparent one when the opposition wins. But of utmost concern was the fact that as of the close of voting, by 4:12 pm on the day, only 47% of the election results from the various polling units across the states were uploaded.

Prior to the Saturday 10th October election, the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu had at a stakeholders meeting in Akure on the 5th of OCtober, promised to hold a free, fair and credible election . In his words, “I wish to assure all eligible voters that every vote will count and only the choice made by the people of Ondo State will determine the outcome of the election. I want to assure political parties and candidates that we will remain focused on our processes and procedures. Let me reiterate to all stakeholders that the Commission will not take any action to the advantage or disadvantage of any political party or candidate.”

The 2023 election was a technological catastrophe in that the problems in Edo and Ondo were magnified beyond the appreciable limits of reason. If the problems of the duo of BVAS and iREV were seen in these off-cycle elections, it seemed to everyone that INEC either did  not learn its lesson or were willing to compromise the trust of Nigerians at the presidential election. Whichever way, a lot of young Nigerians were dampened in the presidential election. In announcing the election results that

In an interview with Channels Television, Mr Okoye cat walked at opposition parties who he lampooned for relying on iREV rather than their agents. If this isn’t an admissibility on the faultiness or suspicion of INEC on the technology it forcefully convinced Nigerians was the silver bullet, then there was more than meets the eye. It should be noted that INEC’s option for digital technology for the conduct of elections was predicated on the increased budget of N305 billion for the conduct of the 2023 general election especially a whopping N117 billion on electoral technologies (38% of its budget) a far improved sum from the N93 billion proposed for the 2015 general election. To have failed in carrying out this duty with the efficiency and credibility required is to compromise in its basic responsibility as an agency of government with the remit to increase public trust.

The 2023 election has come and gone with the attendant erosion of trust in INEC. If this erosion will persist in perpetuity, there seems to me no suggestion that INEC has redeemed its already tattered image in the sight of many Nigerians, especially the young population who voted with zest and the gusto required to produce change in any meaningful society. In my opinion, despite INEC’s semming complicity in undermining the electoral integrity of Nigerians, there were significant improvements unlike the past elections; however, it seems that a tech-agnostic INEC might have to rebrand itself for the job it prides itself to have conducted in fairness. The job of conducting credible elections is an onerous one and comes with a range of expectations bordering on credibility, admissibility of technical incompetence which can be remediated and most importantly, improving upon successive elections. These have not been met as the 2025 gubernatorial election in Edo state showed a recalcitrant INEC flouting its basic rules from the shoddy preparedness to the shambolic post-election activities. Little wonder the 2023 election came with an overwhelming barrage of petitions at all levels of court which have left many apprehensive of the conduct of future elections.

In ignoring the role of technology and the responsibility of use, INEC’s bluff was demonstrably blind to the belated admonition of the former Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Olukayode Ariwola, who at the two-day workshop for judges on the review of the 2023 election petition tribunals/court and appeals spoke to the facts of judicial compromise at all levels. In his submission, “No doubt, the adjudication on the 2023 election petitions came with varied challenges that have to be critically assessed and reviewed in order to forge a much better way forward.

“In those areas we have done well, we can literally eulogise ourselves and strive to improve on them, as self-praise is no more an offender than self-denial. As for those areas where our inadequacies are manifestly obvious, we have to properly address them and bring on board new methods and approaches that would whet our appetite for success. We must intensify efforts in engaging in those activities that will earn us more accolades than vilifications,”

In following up with INEC, it seems like Nigeria’s tertiary education entrance examination body, JAMB has followed suit in this disorderliness and poor management of digital procedures. Nigeria as it were, seems to play with pride, the lead role in the seminal work of Prof. Anezi Okoro, One Week One Trouble, in which the protagonist, Wilson Tagbo, couldn’t help but get into repeated trouble until he finally joined a cult group and was arrested.

JAMB, not new to server errors and difficulties, this year, scored an Andres Inesta-like screamer with this year’s performance. It should be remembered that in 2016, the Association of Tutorial School Operators (ATSO) accused JAMB of using the wrong grading software to mark the 2016/2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). In calling for the resignation of the then JAMB Registrar, Prof. Dibu Ojerinde, the group claimed that the error was responsible for the poor and conflicting results that were released by the board for the examination written between February 27 and March 17 2016 in over 500 centres nationwide. In releasing the result, the group alleged that the board erroneously used the software from the 2015 year to grade the 2016 examination.

Over the years and since the assumption of office of Prof Ishaq Oloyede, there seemed to have been reprieve. Prof. Oloyede’s tenure has been marked by improvements in the operation and conduct of the exam. However, this year’s result goes a long way to provide an avenue for discredit for what he’s built. In this year’s result as released by JAMB, 379,997 candidates in the five states of the South East geographical zone and Lagos were affected by glitches identified as human error by JAMB.

An unexpected series of actions on the 14th of May, days after the raging controversy had started about JAMB’s software glitch, started with the body releasing a seven-page riposte to address the issue tagged “Man Proposes, God Disposes”. In addition to JAMB’s solemnization of its defective product, Prof Ishaq Oloyode’s lacrimation provided a legitimization for JAMB’s failure as God’s disposition. God, it would seem, takes sadistic delight in Nigeria’s rapid descent into guided inefficiency.

Every year, captured in Nigeria’s budget is an appropriation for computers and other technological provisions by ministries, departments and agencies. This would suggest that there is a regular training program for them all to ensure they key into the global connectedness and upscaling common in other countries. While it is convenient for these agencies on which the lives and livelihood of many Nigerians rest to blame external support staff, ad hoc teams or private data/service providers, it is crucial to know that they are not exempted from the blame. In fact, a big part of the blame rests squarely on their shoulders and this must be treated with all sense of urgency and the responsibility required.

It has to be noted that the proposed 2023 Population and Housing Census by the Nigerian Population Commission was shelved due to the lack of funds, but the major concern is that it is another area where the deployment of server-reliant data transmission will come into play and like other times, very recently, the agencies of government responsible have failed the simple integrity test. As someone recently argued, these errors are not far from our retrogressive underinvestment in mathematics and stem education. Maybe our aversion for data and numbers is catching up with us, or the fact that we can’t seem to put in place mechanisms that checkmate failure and nip acts of self-sabotage in the bud. This is my proposition, maybe God’s disposition is that we all come back to him penitent like Prof Oloyede and most importantly, weep publicly!

Joshua Ogbonna is a scholar, a public policy and data analyst.

joshuakayceogbonna@gmail.com