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Democracy & Governance

A Neck Without a Head -By Roy Biakpara

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Roy Biakpara

In human anatomy, the neck is useless if there is no head and vice versa.

The amount of the information that e-commerce business harvests about customers & specific demographics is huge, and typically the use of this data influences and impacts more parts of daily living than is given thought. It is especially for that reason that developed countries, via pressure groups and regulation, do all to keep these businesses in check where they can. Without a doubt, politics, being at the top of the tree in control and policy formulation, is also influenced.

You can go from data specification, dataset creation, and statistical analysis. If they care, they would throw in ethical considerations too.

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Having a scientifically-derived dataset is an informed basis for allocating scarce resources whether it is military (food, guns, weapons, uniform, etc) or for the deployment of election materials and security. This would be what any right-thinking establishment would do to avoid waste. In the case of the military, it will ensure there is an adequate allocation supply of resources to the soldiers in battle; never mind deploying the right number.

Academics have created several templates to drive this process and are given for FREE. This kind of analysis was useful and rightly critical to the success of the British and Allied forces against the Nazis. Sherlock Holmes once said (in A Scandal in Bohemia): “it is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts”. I wonder if this is not the case in Nigeria. A simple application of Operational Research.

Elections are complex undertakings, however. Regardless of where they take place, those tasked with overseeing elections face numerous risks in successfully conducting them. These risks are varied throughout all areas of operations down to the security aspects of electoral processes – the consequences of which can be serious in both well-established and transitional democracies.

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To this end, Elections Canada is uses the Federal Government Integrated Risk Management Framework (Government of Canada 2013), while Colombia applies the Internal Standard Control Mechanism (Modelo Estándar de Control Interno, MECI) (Secretaría Distrital de Hacienda 2016). Meanwhile, training on electoral violence and early warning have been implemented in Chad, Chile, Ethiopia, and Swaziland.

Officially, the 2019 presidential elections in Nigeria were the most expensive ever held in Nigeria, costing ₦69 billion MORE THAN the 2015 elections.—which were the best run in the country’s history (USIP) but also the most violent (Human Rights Watch). This happened because in 2014, INEC established a risk management (ERM) unit to identify, monitor, analyse and report on electoral risks as part of a project to implement the ERM Tool –  a joint project between INEC, International IDEA and the African Union.

The ERM unit was under the supervision of the Chairperson’s office and consisted of a coordinator, a full-time data analyst and seven part-time data analysts seconded from other INEC departments, backed up by 37 desk officers from INEC’s state offices. They had to have a SERVER, which hasn’t been marked OBSOLETE…yet.

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They resorted to using a Delphi technique (use of experts) via workshops to first identify electoral risks in December 2013 and subsequently wider consultation with collected data from further expert meetings, desk officers’ reports, media, and stakeholders’ reports throughout 2014. Data collection further intensified in the three months before the elections. The unit tracked electoral risks related to a number of factors ranging from INEC operational tasks to the potential impact of the Boko Haram insurgency on the electoral process. Once the unit had collected and analysed the data, it prepared frequent risk reports for INEC Commissioners.

During the elections, INEC established a Situation Room in Abuja and Election Support Centres at its state offices designed to monitor the process and ensure rapid intervention in case of reports of unrest or technical difficulties. The ERM unit was embedded in the Situation Room to compile risk data from state offices, call centers, the media and INEC’s various tracking platforms. INEC Commissioners and directors in the Situation Room also remained in constant contact with security agencies, political parties, and the civil society situation room.

Amongst other things, INEC is supposed to “monitor the organisation and operation of the political parties, including their FINANCES; conventions, congresses, and party primaries.” Has anyone ever heard INEC make a comment about parties’ finances?

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The responsibility of ensuring security is more the responsibility of the government, but must be required by the electoral body.

Since the conduct of the 2015 general elections, you begin to wonder why it is not an upward trajectory with all the lessons learned for successes instead of failures. It should be more than printing ballot papers, hiring full/part-time staff, buying vehicles, and acquiring hardware and equipment.

In Nigeria, the odds are stacked against a competent and upright electoral body. How much more one that is questionably independent if indeed it is. Afterall, AUTONOMY, is listed as its number one value.

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