INEC And Challenge Of Social Media Influence On Elections
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is mandated to conduct and announce election results. But the deluge of results that through social media activists and electoral umpires was a case in study.
Unlike ‘locomotive’ INEC, these classes of umpires probably underwent special ‘training’ on how to release election results in a jiffy. They had 90 per cent of the election results released by 3p.m on the day of the election, when voting had not even started in some polling units.
However, most of the results did not only stand flat in the face of INEC’s authentic result released on Wednesday, about three days after the conclusion of the elections.
Even though Jega was busy on how to deliver credible elections, these sets of activists went ahead to announce certain candidates as, not possible winners, but winners, depending on where their selfish interest lay. They used everything they laid their hands on the social media, including facebooks, twitters and blogs, to deceive whoever cared.
Gullibility and emotion, rather than reason, guided the thoughts of some voters and analysts, who came across the fraudulent posts. These ones thought their candidates were coasting home to victory, and gullibly relied on the posts for analysis and prediction of their supposed winner.
When they confront supporters of opposing candidates with these ‘facts’, these unsophisticated fans argued out their blood. Such scenarios raised tension and embers of violence across the federation.
But it had to take divine intervention and the efforts of some social media savvy like Mr.Immanuel Ibe-Anyanwu to cool such embers in some quarters.
In a ‘social media letter’ addressed to “dear social media activists” on facebook as soon fake results started emanating from social media, Ibe-Anyanwu called for caution.”It will be on Monday, or Tuesday. That is when violence will erupt on the streets, if there will be violence. If there will be violence? Do you set your roof on fire and expect it not to burn?” he asked.
“It is natural, in the case of post-electoral violence, that many will curse the crude street mobs doing the actual sport of hacking off heads from shoulders. You, the facebook and twitter typist, will blame everyone else but yourself. But the blood is on you.
The blood of many, who will lose their lives, because you were exuberantly stupid, will be on your head,” he advised.
“Because, you ‘delivered your ward’ to your party, because Mr.This And That lost his ward to your party; because your friend also delivered his own ward, in an election of say 2 million voters in a state, your party won by 150 to 90 votes in your ward, you, therefore, claim categorically that your party is “coasting home to victory”.
“They had better not rig it overnight’, you warned. You have seen victory, judging by the trend of winning running in your head. Anything contrary to that reality, is rigging. Chai! But it is somehow good to realise that blind religion is not the monopolist of stupidity in the world. It shares that shame with politics, nay Nigerian politics.”
He continued in his melodrama. “Can you please be patient and wait for collation of results to be concluded?” he appealed to no one in particular.
“Do you not realise that some ordinary people out there are already celebrating in their homes, because they ‘heard’ on facebook that this or that party is already leading? Do you not realise that the charge of rigging, and possible violence, may be their later resort when that legitimate organ in this enterprise, INEC, announces a final result that contradicts your posts?
“You claim there is no way your candidate can lose. Because you supplied the material from which the minds of over 60 million voters were made, you are so certain how those people will vote.
When you see that your party is losing, you begin to discredit the whole electoral process, citing irregularities here and there. Ok, if after discrediting the election your party wins, does that mean you will reject the victory?” he asked rhetorically.
“So, dear friend, if, by Monday or Tuesday, some people who have digested your concoctions take to violence, and possibly kill others, do not come making updates about some amorphous culprit out there. You are the killer, man!
Ok, we know we need to keep tabs on the process because we do not trust the politicians. But we should keep tabs with our heads properly screwed on our necks. Some blogs already have final results, with percentage allocations! That is keeping tabs for witchcraft. Calm down and wait for authentic results, state by state, before you turn up your music.
Many times in Nigeria, results have shown that electoral victories on the social media are figures of speech, meaning the opposite of what they say.” It took swift move by INEC to recover the site.
In as much as the display of unofficial results on social media shows how Nigerians may use the social media to cause social disconnect, some cyber security experts believe that the onions rest on INEC to ensure that such scenario does not repeat itself in April 11 elections, holding next week.
In this school of thought is the Senior Vice-President (Africa National Cyber Initiatives) of Centre for Strategic CyberSpace + Security Science (CSCSS) Mr.Kelechi Agbugba, a cyberspace security expert.
The cyberspace defence intelligence expert is of the opinion that there is nothing wrong in people using social media to socialise. “It is not illegal in itself to use the social media to disseminate information,” he said. “ But where there is a problem is when people assume different personalities to cause havoc or to disseminate wrong information over social media.”
It is a widely held view that social media electoral umpires did not use the platform to socialise but use it as an avenue to spread falsehood. But before you asked how to curb the trend, Agbugba said “ it might be difficult to curb this on social media, except where we monitor these accounts and where this information is coming from.” But “my suggestion is to create a very strong movement for INEC on social media where authentic elections information can be disseminated. This can be done via the Internet or mobile platforms.
Results should be available real-time online as soon as it is collated at the final point and signed off at the state level. This will leave very little room for wrong information and rumour mongers,”he said.
Agbugba also added that INEC needed to strengthen its website from hackers. “Since INEC is a critical national infrastructure, hacking of its website could be seen as a major breach or compromise in our national asset,” Agbugba said. “And this could cause a major problem for the entire electioneering process and also affect the integrity of our critical national asset.
We can provide INEC as well as other major government organisations with the intelligence it requires to rebuff these kinds of attack, which is an emerging form of attack on our national interest.
These hackers may either be state or non-state actors who may want to target our critical national assets, which INEC is one. INEC and other organisations will have to come together and invest in a cyber-intelligence and defence strategy, which will enable it rebuff and fight against these attacks from hackers. These attacks are growing and becoming more sophisticated,” he said.
Lagos-based legal commentator, Mr. Liborous Oshoma, a lawyer, agreed with Agbugba when he said INEC needed to strengthen its social media presence.
“By the time amendments are put in the Electoral Act to empower INEC to setting machineries in place to prosecuting these persons, then we will be putting a process in place where fake results will not be published.
Once people go online with fake election results, everybody, both home and abroad, may be forced to rely on them, provided one post becomes too many. That is why we need to discourage such practice, and encourage a transparent process and an avenue where people will be able to authenticate the results they have.
That means we should have a process where when elections are going on, people can access INEC online to know how many people have been accredited in each polling unit and how voting is going on. Some of these are ways we can strengthen electoral laws to discourage panic voting and fraudulent posting of results.”
Oshoma said there is no known legal framework, not even the seditious law, that INEC can rely on to prosecute those who posted fake election results. “Internet offences are still not largely uncovered by our laws,” he said. “How do you determine who pasted these fake results first? Where did it emanate from?” Oshoma asked. “Our laws are still novel in this area. People may make use of the law of justification to say ‘I saw it online and repost because I thought it was true.’”
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