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By Prince Osuagwu
Even though the recent concluded general elections in Nigeria has been given pass mark by a great number of observers, the sore point for technology freaks and ICT experts is that the electronic registration which gulped quite some tax payers money was dumped for manual applications in other processes of the election.
And so, when a few ICT Journalists ran into the Managing Director/Chief Executive of Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited, NIGCOMSAT, Engr. Timasaniyu Ahmed- Rufai, recently, the issue was raised, based on the fact that he had advocated for an outright e-voting system earlier before the elections.
Rufai did not also mince words when he stoutly declared that with the e-voting system developed by NIGCOMSAT, Nigeria was ready for e-voting in 2015. Excerpts:
Sir, its good meeting you now, especially as the elections are almost over. Sometime ago you developed and proposed e-voting system for the country. Has the project been abandoned or is it still relevant, in the light that the system used in the past elections can best be described as electro-manual.?
No, the E-voting system has not been abandoned. The E-voting system was successfully demonstrated to the Chairman of INEC Prof. Attahiru Jega including the entire process from Registration, verification, voting and tallying. Furthermore, the system was recently utilized to conduct election for the Nigcomsat multipurpose cooperative society and was monitored by staff members locally and internationally using various web enabled devices such as Blackberry, iPad and PCs.
Why that project, in the first place, and how long did it take you to develop it?
Nigeria is known by the international community for electoral ineptitude and generally inability to conduct credible elections. Unfortunately credible elections are crucial to the provision of the dividends of democracy. Every quarter of a decade the country prepares for yet another election to determine who takes over the helm of affairs. The lack of enthusiasm displayed by the electorates is a disillusion due to the fact that previous elections have been marred by gross irregularities and lacked credibility because they virtually fail to involve the electorate in the process of electing a candidate..
Consequently, Nigcomsat’s Printed Circuit Board(PCB) & Microelectronics Centre of the Research & Development Department embarked on a mission to mitigate the aforementioned issues. The result was an electronic solution to the existing manual system which is slow, tedious, bulky, unattractive and erroneous.
The electronic voting platform would provide more secure and reliable system in which electorates’ votes count. The electronic nature of the system moderates the level of human interaction with the system thus diminishing its disposition to election malpractices and human errors. It will also restore confidence in electoral processes in the country. The fool-proof and adaptable technology can instantaneously give collated results if communication links are provided to all polling units from local, state to national level. The estimated design and development time of both hardware and software components is 3 months.
This sounds interesting but can you give more insights on how it works?
Like I said, E-voting system is a system developed by a team of software and hardware engineers of the Research & Development department of NigComSat Ltd. It adopts primarily two technologies; the Radio Frequency Identification, RFID and Biometrics.
The RFID, is a technology that offers huge potential for automating processes and providing accurate, reliable data. Its peculiar feature includes provision of a globally unique digital identity to each physical object. This technology comprises of two major units, tags and interrogators. RFID tags are known as transponders that listen for radio signal sent by transceivers/interrogators and readers. When a transponder receives a radio query it replies by sending a unique ID back to the interrogator for further processing. Biometrics technology on the other hand provides means of recognizing humans based on an intrinsic physical trait unique to every individual.
This is more of technical. Can we get this down, streetwise, where even a market woman can key into the essence of these technologies?
What I am explaining is that the E-voting system is divided into three parts namely Registration, verification/voting and collation. Registration, directly captures the details of voters and stores it in a smart card and the details are sent remotely to a database in the election headquarters. It consists of both hardware and firmware units combined to acquire and locally store voters’ data such as fingerprints and personal data.
Voting starts with the verification of the voter. This is very essential to eliminate multiple voting. After the verification, voting starts. The voter follows the instructions to select the candidate in a polling booth. Before saving the details the voter is prompted to confirm their selection and then a field is set in the card to show what election the voter has cast his vote.
Meanwhile, while voting is taking place collation is also taking place simultaneously and the results are displayed real time on a web based application. The cast votes are counted in real time. The votes can be viewed by all but cannot be modified. The communication link between the voting terminal and the remote central database is protected against intruders. So voters, can view results and monitor the progress of their candidate via the web.
Because this system is biometric based, there is no possibility of multiple voting, Impersonation is impossible because you cannot take someone else’s card and vote with it. Invalid votes as a result of ink smear in the traditional voting system is eliminated through the e-voting system which is just by clicking. Real-time online view of the result of the votes cast makes the system more transparent
The benefits are numerous. Bulk paper works is eliminated by the e-voting system, possibilities of human error is reduced. It can be programmed for voters to vote from any part of the country for the candidate of their choice, thus eliminating the risk, cost and stress of traveling from one place to the other to either register or to vote.
Nigerians in diaspora can also vote irrespective of their geographic location. The network is a highly secured one; Rigging through ballot stuffing, ballot box snatching and hijacking is not applicable
Fantastic. But everything made by man has its challenges. What would that of e-voting system be?
Yes you are right. But the only things we can readily think of is the fear of hacking when the machines are networked, but you also know there are solutions to take care of that if government means business. Again, lack of adequate infrastructural amenities such as power and inadequate ICT access in some geographic regions of the country. Literacy level of the electorates, is also a concern but we can only get better if we decide to get things right. Countries of the world where stable power and ubiquitous infrastructural amenities are order of the day are not so endowed as we are. So what I am saying is that if we decide to adopt this, we can start to work on those challenges now.
Pictures of the physically challenged and vulnerable people of the society who queue under the sun and rain to register or cast votes in the last election were touchy. I wouldn’t know how flexible your system can be to ease off such pains for these set of people?
The combination of our RFID and Biometric system is suitable for Non-handicapped voters by default. However, to accommodate the disabled, our system supports other kinds of authentication hardware like retinal/iris scanners and voice recognition system to allow for different methods of authenticating voters.
Looking at the level of work on this project, assuming all the challenges are taken care of when do you think we are ready to go with this system?
I told you that we have tested it to both INEC and on our own in-house elections which was monitored here and internationally. Everything is ready. As a matter of fact, we can use this system in 2015 and that would be Nigeria, making history again.
Before the e-voting system takes away our attention from the fact that you are the custodian of our satellite communication, may we, for the interest of those who do not know the benefits of satellite communications, ask you to paint a picture of the beauty of satellite technology in the scheme of things today in the country?
The beauty of satellite technology in the scheme of things is in its complex and numerous engineering processes and applications, bringing forth all arms of engineering and physical sciences together. Delivery of satellite services and applications whether Communication, Observation or Navigation Satellite comes with other immense benefits associated with operations & control, advanced manufacturing processes, process engineering, risk management, complex project engineering management among others. These are the required baselines for a nation like Nigeria which serves as dumping ground for both simple and complex technological products to join the league of industrialized nations.
For instance, Satellite technology plays very important roles in our daily lives.....
.....How?
For instance, it provides Satellite Internet services with wider reach, high data speed, irrespective of geographic location.
Satellite Communication provides Telephony services with wide coverage area, real time transactions, international and regional calls. There is also the Satellite Radio with wide spread of signal with less loss. It also provides Satellite Television with wider reach and range of channels and services.
There is also the Satellite Navigation Systems for positioning, location, fleet management, navigation among other benefits. Weather Satellites also helps in predicting weather situations and this is very vital to human life. Yet, you can agree with me that satellite’s importance in National security and real time monitoring of critical national infrastructures can not also be wished away.
In developing countries with inadequate terrestrial and cable infrastructures if the digital divide must be bridged, Satellite Communication and other wireless systems are the cornerstone for universal access.
What chance does Satellite communication stand in the plethora of submarine cables flying in left, right and centre of the ecosystem?
The existence of submarine cables is not a threat to satellite communications. Primarily, they complement each other and address different market targets. For developing countries like Nigeria and other African countries, the infrastructure for cable communication links at the downstream, that is the last mile, is very limited and thus the attendant cost of delivering cable links to millions of homes will be enormous.
At the same time, the distributed cost of satellite communications is much cheaper and relatively uniform. It is the same cost for someone in a densely populated metropolis to have satellite communications and for a farmer living in a remote area hundreds of kilometers from his next neighbor. For these reasons, even in the developed nations and economies like U.S.A where cable distribution is already largely in place, vibrant market for satellite communications still exists for quality broadcasting and strategic national needs including lessons from artificial and natural disasters.
Beyond the satellite or space business, what are Nigerians expecting from NIGCOMSAT?
Primarily as expected of any regional satellite operator and service provider, NIGCOMSAT Ltd provides Control, operations and management of communication satellites including deployment of future fleets to provide redundancy, reliability and market needs of emerging markets in African and Asian region.
We also provide and lease transponders within its coverage areas, as well as cheap teleport services, enterprise turnkey solutions and applications.
As a state owned enterprise under ministry of science and technology, NIGCOMSAT provides secured and dedicated bandwidth for defense, maritime and aviation needs of the nation with its hybrid and high powered global infrastructure (NIGCOMSAT-1R).
We also complements existing terrestrial telecommunication infrastructures to promote universal access and increase ICT Development Index, IDI of the citizens.
We can be described as a strategic agency to drive ICT revolution and extraordinary vehicle for domestication of indigenous technologies from its enormous human resource development, acquired technology transfer trainings and varieties of research and development products from satellite technology spin-offs essentially as it concerns satellite and ground infrastructures, thus creating direct and indirect job opportunities for Nigerians, reducing capital flight and promotion of self reliance.
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