INEC and the Bangladeshi voter registration model

By Nnaemeka Meribe     

How expensive is democracy? This question has arisen because of the quotation given to us a fortnight ago by the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, as what the commission would need to conduct a credible voter registration exercise.

Jega, the media reported, said that between N55bn and N72bn (some reports say N74bn) would be needed for the exercise. And considering that the amount is just for voter registration exercise, we may be talking of spending double the amount by the time 2011 general elections have come and gone.

Of course, I know that democracy cannot be quantified in monetary terms, for, its alternatives - tyranny, despotism and dictatorship - are all types of government that limit our freedom and the choices we can make. And since we all cherish our freedom, there is no amount that can be considered outrageous for it. But in a country where a larger part of the population is immersed in excruciating poverty, there are some amounts that are considered too staggering.

The INEC boss was reported to have told visiting executives of the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities that the N72bn estimate was ”based on the procurement and full deployment of 120, 000 composite electronic voter registration equipment, principally laptop computers, fingerprint scanners, high resolution cameras, back-up power packs and integrated printer for producing temporary but high quality voters‘ cards that can be used for the January (2011 elections).

”Each unit of equipment alone is estimated to cost about $2, 000, given a total naira equivalent of over N36.48 billion for the procurement of equipment alone. Still, this is predicated on getting the equipment directly from the manufacturers, instead of middlemen, which will be even more expensive.”

INEC had said that the existing register was completely unreliable for any credible election and gave the Federal Government a two-week deadline for the release of the money, warning that the absence of a new and credible voter register might scuttle the 2011 election.

The analysis sounds plausible and already many have, in the name of having a credible voter register, thrown their weight behind INEC. In fact, a national newspaper reported last weekend that even the Federal Government had already sourced the fund and was now waiting for the National Assembly‘s approval in order to disburse it.

Of course, we need a credible voter register for a credible election; but I am not very comfortable with giving INEC N72bn (without due diligence) for an exercise that even the commission has already acknowledged its limitations, for, according to Jega, ”we are under no illusion that even the compilation of a new register will be foolproof or perfect; speak less of review of the existing register.”

However, what boggles my mind most is the hint dropped by the electoral boss that the commission might adopt the Bangladeshi voter registration model which he described as the most credible. Bangladesh? Yes, that same country that serially won the Transparency International‘s medal of (dis)honour in corruption. The country was, for five years (from 2001 to 2005), consistently number one on the TI‘s global pecking order of corruption.

That unenviable record gave me the impression then that Bangladesh must be an embodiment of everything bad, for, if a country could topple Nigeria as the world‘s most corrupt nation and maintain that number one spot for good five years before handing over to Somalia, it meant the level of corruption in that country must be execrable.

Anyhow, things seem to have changed now. Just like Nigeria, Bangladesh‘s transparency rating has improved, as, out of over 180 countries, it is 139 on the TI‘s corruption perception index table. That means the country is now more credible than over 40 countries and has even become our role model in election matters. I will not be surprised if Somalia would become our role model in governance soon.

According to the INEC boss, the Bangladesh‘s voter registration is now considered the best model in the world. He said, ”That registration exercise took eight to 11 months to complete and is now considered as the best electoral registration. There are comparable demographics between Nigeria and Bangladesh. They have a large population of 180 million compared to ours which is probably close to 160 million.

Jega said that Bangladesh deployed 30,000 direct data capturing machines for the exercise, adding that while voter registration in Bangladesh took between eight and 11 months, INEC had four months to carry out the exercise.

However, what the INEC boss did not tell us was the amount Bangladesh spent on the exercise which took place barely two years ago. According to a July 23, 2008 Reuters report, Bangladesh spent $65m (about N9.7bn) to register over 80million voters. That is at least N65bn lesser than what INEC told us it would require for the registration of 70 million voters.

Obviously, after three years we should not expect the cost to remain the same; but it is also very unlikely that the cost must have shot up by over 600 per cent within the period, given that we have almost the same level of infrastructural problems with Bangladesh. Besides, I doubt that all the electronic voter registration equipment needed are so much in high demand now that the price would be obeying the basic economics rule of ‘the higher the demand, the higher the price.‘

Again, if INEC finally adopts the Bangladeshi model, it means the commission might soon require another huge amount of money to identify duplicate registrations in our voter database because the model has a second leg. After registering more than 80 million voters using biometric face and fingerprint technology, the country also took the extra step by using Neurotechnology‘s MegaMatcher biometric technology to detect and prevent duplicate registrations.

INEC, therefore, needs to tell us if the N72bn it is demanding covers the second leg of the Bangladesh model or whether it would come up with another demand after the registration exercise and then give the Federal Government another two-week deadline to provide the funds or risk a flawed election.

I understand the high expectations of Nigerians from the new INEC board. But the board should not be in a hurry to impress. It should think through most of its ideas before adopting them. No rational person expects a perfect result from the board, for, even the advanced democracies are still looking for ways to get their electoral systems right.

Who will believe that even in this 21st century, dead people still vote in the United States, the acclaimed bastion of democracy? In his book, America from the Sidelines, Godson Offoaro quoted this report in the November 20, 2000 edition of Time Magazine during the controversial US presidential election of that year, ”The last time an election here got so much attention was three years ago when the race for Miami mayor was stolen with forged and phony absentee ballots. One belonged to a dead guy named Manuel Yip, who, it turned out, had been voting regularly from afterlife. Further investigations revealed some 17,000 deceased persons on state voting rolls...”

There is no doubt that a credible voter register is a pre-requisite for a credible election. And a credible election, to a large extent, will guarantee good governance which is what has eluded Nigeria for many years.

In other words, no price is too much for us to pay in order to get right the process that will lead to that elusive good governance. But in paying this price, we should ensure that we avoid waste, especially when there are lots of other basic things crying for attention. Most importantly, however, if, in our desperation for credible voter register, we fail to scrutinise INEC's monetary demands, we may inadvertently be fertilising the ground for the festering of corruption in the much-discredited commission.