‘Fairness, transparency and equity remain pillars that make democracy viable’

Dr. Adah Obekpa, a US-based Nigerian medical professional, is an Idoma prince, the son of Agabaidu Elias Ikoyi Obekpa, Ochi’doma IV. Born in Plateau State in 1974, Adah, who is also the founder of Renaissance Network Africa (RNA), had his both primary and secondary school education in Benue State from where he proceeded to the University of Ibadan to study medicine. He graduated from medical school in1998 and thereafter, left for the United States of America (USA) in 2001 for his postgraduate studies in Medicine. In this interview with CHIJIOKE IREMEKA, he said the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) were his ideas and proposal to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) among other issues.

With the level of disappointment expressed by Nigerians and international observers towards the conduct of just concluded 2023 general elections, what is your assessment of the elections?
I would start by saying that I am a strong proponent of democracy, especially seeing as it remains the only system of government that offers inclusivity to the citizenry. It gives the people an opportunity to have a say in who and how they want to be ruled. And as such, conducting credible elections is central to its sustainability. Fairness, transparency and equity remain pillars that make democracy viable.

However, it is worthy of note that sustaining democracy comes with a lot of challenges, with Nigeria not being an exception in this regard. As a matter of fact, since our return to democracy in 1999, elections have been a subject of major controversy. They have been marred by many irregularities and have been rife with allegations of rigging and widespread misconducts.

This has entrenched deep distrust in the electoral process among the masses, making them question the sincerity of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Federal Government in holding credible polls.

In all of this, INEC has maintained her commitment and resolve towards conducting free, fair and credible elections. Incidentally, she was at the forefront of lobbying for an amended electoral act, which was passed and signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari before the commencement of the 2023 general elections.

However, going by the conduct and outcome of the elections, it remains to be seen if they are truly committed to holding credible elections or are merely paying lip service to it. Both foreign and local observers have given the agency many knocks and criticised her handling of the process. And the various political parties have expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome of the polls. 

Considering the introduction of devices like the BVAS and IReV, couple with the full proof assuredness that INEC gave Nigerians before the election, what is your rating of their outing?
Most Nigerians with open arms welcomed the introduction of BVAS and IREV by the INEC. These new technologies were meant to bridge the gap between the past and the future. They were passed off as tools that are capable of revolutionising the political landscape of the country and were meant to usher in a new era that’ll be marked by credible and verifiable elections.

INEC repeatedly gave assurances that these technologies would be used to their full potential. As a matter of fact, some credit for its introduction into the electoral act should go to them. Still, proper implementation of policies has been the bane of our nation and INEC has not been left out in this regard. This has further compounded the woes of the average Nigerian who has become used to seeing his hope raised only for it to be dashed. That INEC had four years to plan for the elections makes this even more difficult to swallow.

Like I said earlier, the test of the viability of any democracy is in how efficient its systems work. Credibility can never be sacrificed for whatsoever reason and once the seeds of doubt have been sown, the people struggle to trust the system. From the failure of the BVAS machine to work properly and transmit real time data to the IREV server, to blurry unverifiable result sheets being loaded to manual collation of results, Nigerians were confronted with the reality of a system that was designed to stop irregularities failing to subserve its function.

Kudos must go to INEC though for choosing to move with the trend of using technology to confer more credibility on the system, but a lot has to be done in terms of implementation for it to be used satisfactorily. 

You claimed to have sold the idea of BVAS and IReV to INEC in 2010, could you tell us more about it.
It all started when I read the exposé by Donald Duke, the former Governor of Cross-Rivers State, of how elections were rigged in Nigeria. It was revealing as well as scandalous. I was very sad. I wanted something to change with our electoral process. I assembled a team and we came up with this idea to introduce electronic voting into our electoral system to curb the perennial problem of the manipulation of the electoral system in Nigeria. And because I wanted a foolproof technology, which could not be easily manipulated, I opted for the use of the iPhone as the best device for the system.

I and my team at Renaissance Network Africa (RNA), which I founded then, approached Layer3, an IT company, to design the system, which I had in mind. It was in 2010 towards the build up to the 2011 General Elections. I thought the timing was perfect then. I scheduled a meeting with the then INEC Chairman, Prof. Atahiru Jega. And some days later, the I-voting Proposal was presented to INEC by my humble self and a Director at Layer3. The Proposal was well received and acknowledged. We were the first of its kind to do that in Nigeria.

Considering that in your proposal, you may not have captioned the devices you proposed with the specific names, how sure are you that IReV and BVAS were your ideas on implementation?
The BVAS and IReV technology is exactly the same as the one we recommended to INEC. No significant difference, save for the use of an Android device by INEC instead of the iPhone which we proposed. The system consists of five consecutive phases of voter’s registration, storage of voter’s information, Voter’s card authentication, vote casting and vote counting which have been replicated by INEC with the use of BVAS and other support systems.

INEC used those devices and many believe their performance was still abysmally low. Is it that your proposition to them is not the solution to election rigging, or there were things in your proposal, which would have made the election full proof that INEC did not implement?
Like I stated earlier, the use of BVAS and IREV technologies is a welcome idea. The challenge has been its implementation. The purpose for the introduction of these technologies was to ensure that free, fair, credible and verifiable elections were conducted. Nothing confers credibility on a process like transparency. 

If access to real time results were granted to Nigerians, then I’m sure that most of the debates and arguments we are experiencing wouldn’t have occurred. Both local and international observers have given INEC some knocks. It is the opacity in the electioneering process that we want to eliminate and in that regard INEC still has a lot of work to be done. 

Additionally, a fail-safe measure was put in place to checkmate any manipulation of election results. In the original document, it was clearly stated that not only would the election results be uploaded to a central server, they would be transmitted to the various political parties in real time. This idea would have added several layers of credibility to the process. But this was surprisingly omitted from the final proposal for BVAS and IREV by INEC. Perhaps, if this were implemented, a lot of the questions surrounding the outcome of the elections wouldn’t have sprung up. 

You sued INEC; do you have confidence in the Nigeria judiciary?
There is a quote by Plato that says the worst form of justice is pretended justice. That justice not served is a tragedy in itself, but when injustice is passed off as justice, then a crime of inestimable magnitude; one that targets the very tenets upon which the concept of justice is founded has been committed. This threatens the fabric of society and could crumble the very pillars upon which she stands. 

The administration of justice in this context is not the exclusive preserve of the honourable justices in our courts. It is the role of society at large to ensure that justice is always seen to be done because like the popular saying, injustice to one is injustice to all. So in the end, justice is not just about protecting a personal interest but in preserving one of the foremost pillars upon which society stands. 

I’d like to believe that the judiciary would rise to the occasion and do all that’s necessary to keep our society on the path of peace, prosperity and progress, as espoused by our founding fathers.

If you fail to get justice, what would you do?
Justice is a function of compassion and love. It is driven by the need to see a fractured society reunited with her values and morals because at the end, we are all stakeholders in society and a better society for one is a better society for all.

This is not solely about me but is also about Nigeria, our history and our future. We are the giant of Africa, believe it or not. An awakening in our country has the capacity of rousing the whole continent from slumber.  Denying Nigeria and Nigerians justice would be akin to denying her of her destiny. The judiciary remains the last hope of the common man and our ailing democracy. It is her statutory duty to ensure that she carries out her duty in a holistic manner.