The Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (ECNBA) has insisted that the 2024 polls that produced Afam Osigwe as its new president, were credible.
The ECNBA was responding to the complaints of the two presidential candidates in the July 20 elections of the association.
The first runner-up, Tobenna Erojikwe, and Chukwuka Ikwuazom the 2nd runner-up, had questioned the integrity of the process and called for an audit.
However, in a letter jointly addressed to both candidates and signed by the Chairman and Secretary of the ECNBA, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Oluseun Abimbola and Huwaila Muhammad, the electoral body noted that the body which had conducted the election, the Election Voting Platform (Election Buddy) is an international company based in Canada which has conducted over 300,000 elections globally for organisations like the NBA, Multinational Corporations holding General Meetings across continents, party primaries and national elections of Nations around the world.
It reiterated that the Election Buddy consortium therefore has no affiliation of any sort with the NBA, nor any candidate other than as a service provider to ECNBA for the past election.
The electoral body also detailed its summary of compliance with the constitution and noted that although Erojikwe had continued to erroneously claim in publications on social media, that the voters’ list was not published, the electronic trail of notices on the www.ecnba.org website showed that this claim was misconceived.
It also noted that in line with the Data Privacy Act, the committee deployed the use of “appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability of the personal data”, in publishing the Voters’ list to meet its constitutional obligations under the NBA Constitution.
The committee said this informed the unique manner in which the voters’ list was published on its website in a manner that allowed members to check their eligibility, and confirm their details to receive their voting codes by personally inserting their unique SCN to search for their names on the list, yet prevents unauthorised persons from accessing their details without their consent.
The ECNBA explained the voters’ list and the Branch Voters’ directory are still on its website to date and will remain there until the post-election reviews and audit processes are finalised, and submitted to the National Executive Council (NEC).
It said, “It is therefore misinformation by any candidate to continue to suggest on social media that the voters’ list was not published until hours before the commencement of the election when you and all candidates are aware of the Voters’ list publication since 28th May 2024 when members were invited to verify their details in preparation for election as intended by the constitution”.
On issues of alleged identity theft/double voting, the electoral committee said it implemented a robust system which saw each voter receiving a unique voting link, which is securely generated and distributed individually.
This unique link which was dispatched by email and SMS to eligible voters via emails and phone numbers, the committee said, guaranteed the integrity of the election by ensuring that each voter could only vote once, and maintain a fair and transparent voting process.
While expressing confidence in the process and system design deployed, the ECNBA however asked the candidates to provide detailed information about specific cases they have observed, to enable the electoral committee to interrogate each case, compare it with its electronic footprints and publish its findings accordingly.
On discrepancies in the vote display and updates, the ECNBA explained that the results display page had an automatic refresh feature, which is confirmed to happen within minutes after the compilation and sorting of results after a vote is cast.
The committee assured that there was no malicious intent of any sort either in the periodic display or in the final tally.
It said, “The number of votes attributed to all candidates is an exact reflection of the ballots cast by participants throughout the election period.
“Your claim of a steady increase pattern without specifying your assumed or calculated ratio of the so-called “steady increase” makes such a claim empty and without foundation. However, to provide you with some clarity, we have attached the hourly table of votes cast (See Annexure A). This table aptly demonstrates that the votes cast each hour by all voters do not follow any steady pattern nor even increase, thus disproving your claim of a pre-programmed voting pattern or vote allocation”
The electoral committee specifically noted that at the commencement of the election, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chuwkuka Ikuwazom was in 2nd place in the votes cast at least in the early hours until the vote tally of Erojikwe increased, and pushed him to 2nd place with Ikuwazom SAN dropping to 3rd.
It said that it “is therefore incorrect to allege as Mr Ikuwazom and his supporters suggested in social media posts that he was placed third all through the election, nor was there an exactitude attributable to votes progression of any candidate”.
The electoral committee reiterated that the ECNBA and its Service Providers were and remain committed to maintaining the integrity of the election process, and ensuring that every vote cast is accurately reflected in the final results, and making allegations of pre-programming of voting results without any fact of such is to maliciously deprecate the reputation of the international companies and Service Providers employed by the ECNBA, and indeed of members of the ECNBA as being co-conspirators in pre-programming vote patterns, without offering any shred of fact in justification”.
On discrepancies in vote patterns, the ECNBA also maintained that the allegation by Ikuwazom SAN that “reported voting figures show inconsistencies with the actual votes cast” by his supporters, lacks merit.
While clarifying that the choices made by voters in their ballots are private and confidential, the ECNBA insisted that no contestant can know with certainty how individual voters or indeed his said supporters cast their votes.
“Did the 40,656 voters who participated (of which 9,018 voters cast their ballots for Mr Ikuwazom) show you their e-ballots to know who they really voted for? Actual votes cast by any candidate’s supporters are only known to each voter. Extrapolating from assurances given you by supporters, to match against actual reported voting figures tallied, offers no scientific basis of arriving at your conclusions sirs.”
On the claim that the number of votes ascribed to the winning candidate steadily increased in an almost exact geometric progression at the top of each hour for nearly the entirety of the election in a manner demonstrative of a pre-programming of votes, the ECNBA reiterated that the number of votes attributed to all candidates is an exact reflection of the ballots cast by the participants throughout the election period.
“A claim of a steady increase pattern without specifying the ratio of such a “steady increase” is baseless. To provide clarity, we have attached an hourly table of votes cast. This table demonstrates that the votes cast each hour by all voters do not follow a steady or even increase, thus disproving the claim of a pre-programmed vote allocation. The vote increase pattern observed is a natural result of member participation throughout the election period”.
With regards to the allegation that the actual voting took place on the platform provided by Election Buddy i.e. electionbuddy.com, and the live election results were exhibited on a completely different and unrelated platform, go.ecnba.org. the ECNBA said the full certification of results by Election Buddy and delivered to the ECNBA immediately after the election negates this allegation.
“This certification is based on all the information available on the backend servers of Election Buddy and the information displayed on go.ecnba.org is consistent with the certification of results…Based on past NBA election experience, we found the viewership of election results extends beyond the eligible voters. Concerned citizens, observers, Non-Eligible/Non-Voting lawyers, Non-lawyers curious individuals within and outside Nigeria, and many others follow the results. This means that while the system for elections is designed to sufficiently handle the expected number of voters (72,059), the results display page must be able to handle much more traffic than the voter traffic without freezing or downtime. This was one of the key lessons learnt from the previous online NBA elections held by past ECNBA. As a matter of fact, in one of such past NBA elections, there were over 3.7 million hits on the election results page alone from all over the world!”
On the allegations by some voters/supporters of the candidates, who claimed to have received emails acknowledging that their votes had been cast by persons other than them, the ECNBA reiterated its unique voting link procedure for each voter, but also went a step further to request for a pool of the SCN numbers of such persons so it could investigate the claims
On claims that voting continued into the early hours of Sunday, 21 July 2024 and the number of votes continued to increase despite polls closing at 11.59 pm on Sat, July 20, the ECNBA noted that it was a compilation of results that were completed at past midnight when the voting closed.
“The final compilation of results is an intensive process because it includes a ballot-by-ballot check, vote-by-vote verification and integrity check. It also includes a check for any tampering. All the voting data is tamper-evident, making it very difficult to manipulate the results of the election. This is one of the most powerful features of the voting platform provided by ElectionBuddy.
However, due to a surge towards the final minutes of the voting period, it meant it was critical to wait and fully complete this check when voting closed”.
The electoral body, however, said it had escalated the respective requests of the two candidates for access and information to the electronic voting to its service provider (E-Buddy), even as it is conducting its post-election audit.
The committee also said it will make public its post-election audit and report in the next few weeks.
“Our final reports will contain recommendations from ECNBA and our Service Providers, of ways and steps to even make the process more seamless beyond the success of the 2024 elections.
While we appreciate your disappointment at the loss of an election, we do not think every loss should be attributed to mischief and unwholesome practices as alleged by your complaints”.
