NIGERIA: INEC'S PROBLEMS INSURMOUNTABLE?

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ABUJA 003139

SIPDIS


E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/13/2012
TAGS: PGOV PREL NI
SUBJECT: NIGERIA: INEC'S PROBLEMS INSURMOUNTABLE?

REF: A. ABUJA 2989

B. ABUJA 2739


Classified by Ambassador Howard F. Jeter. Reasons: 1.5 (B&D).


NIGERIA: INEC'S PROBLEMS INSURMOUNTABLE?


REF: A) Abuja 2989; B) Abuja 2739



1. (C) SUMMARY: Nigeria's INEC faces logistical roadblocks
as
it tries to conduct elections at all three tiers of
government
in 2003. These obstacles include a critical cash shortfall,
a
flawed registration process, and the Augean task of
processing
70 million voter registration forms. The absence of
effective
leadership by the Commission combines with manipulative
activity
by some actors to threaten the 2003 electoral calendar with
disruption. END SUMMARY.



2. (C) Nigeria's Independent National Election Commission
(INEC) faces many challenges in its efforts to stage local,
state and national elections in 2003. No visible activity
has
taken place, and insiders tell Poloff that INEC is paralyzed
by
its efforts to produce a voters list. Further, according to
a
report published in "The Guardian," a Lagos-based national
newspaper, INEC Director of Finance Olusegun Akanni testified
during hearings at the House of Representatives that "next
year's elections may be in doubt, given an array of problems
as
yet unaddressed." Among Akanni's worries is INEC's lack of a
budget. Akanni testified that INEC needed 19.8 billion Naira
to
complete "compilation of the voters register" and to purchase
elections materials. According to reports of his testimony,
Akanni said that Nigeria had yet to order the estimated
600,000
ballot boxes which it will need to import ahead of elections.





3. (C) During the September voters' registration exercise,
INEC Chairman Abel Guobadia admitted problems and cited
shortages of registration materials. At that time he blamed
"politicians" for hoarding materials illegally and other
efforts
to manipulate the registration process. But six weeks after
the
exercise, Guobadia told a group of concerned Ambassadors that
the registration was not flawed and blamed troublemakers for
criticizing the lack of materials and other problems with the
process (Ref A).



4. (C) During the exercise, diplomats had observed many
locations in Lagos, Niger, and Nasarawa states and in the
Federal Capital Territory where materials were not available.


Estimates of unregistered voters by local poll-workers
consistently ranged from 40 to 60 percent of eligible adults
(Ref B). This estimate is consistent with those made by
other
interest groups, including the North's Arewa Consultative
Forum
(ACF) and the Southeast's Ohaneze Ndigbo.



5. (C) Subsequent to the September 22 closure of voters
registration, INEC failed to produce the preliminary list for
public scrutiny on September 26, the originally promised
date.
According to an employee of the South African company
contracted
to provide registration materials, computers and technical
support, INEC had yet to begin processing the approximately
60
million registration forms as of November 4. Moreover, an
INEC
staffer told Poloff that serious processing deficiencies
remain
as of the end of October. He recounted a test, performed
around
October 20, which required him to fill in three separate
forms
with his own thumbprint to test the biometric discrimination
capabilities of the system. According to him, the
thumbprints,
taken in the controlled environment of his office, all passed
the system designed to ferret out multiple registrations.
"The
fingerprints from the field are not that consistent and are
likely to prove unusable," he commented.



6. (C) While most of the completed registration forms have
been collected in Abuja, some reportedly have yet to arrive.
Other problems remain. Poloff encountered several people in
Plateau state who claimed to have sold their temporary voters
identifications to "politicians." The forms themselves may
present another obstacle. According to an INEC information
technician, the OMR (optical magnetic reader) forms are too
thin
and could jam the scanners. Further, he commented, he
believes
that the variance of the forms is over the threshold for OMR
scanning, about 1.5 millimeters.



7. (C) Even if INEC is able to overcome these problems, the
logistical nightmare of compiling a list of 60 million voters
still looms. Assuming a rate of one form every 10 seconds
and
operating 16 hours per day, a total of 10,416 computer/days
will
be required to process the forms. If, as INEC asserts,
processing has begun, it is (just) possible to finish by the
late-December deadline. However, if Embassy sources are
correct
in saying that batch processing has yet to begin, the task
becomes enormous. Almost 250 separate processors and OMR
readers would need to function flawlessly, without a network
failure or other difficulty, to meet the newest late-December
date for publishing the list. Printing the lists would
require
a similar amount of computing power. The technicians at INEC
and with the South African company have been unable to verify
whether the computerization of INEC would allow for parallel
processing of forms or for collating a master database list
for
the entire country.


COMMENT
--------------



8. (C) Even if the biometric characteristics could be
distinguished (unlikely, for reasons given above),it is all
but
inconceivable that INEC has sufficient computing power at its
command to scrutinize and validate 60-plus million forms.
(Estimates of forms submitted range from 60 to 67 million.)
INEC and Nigeria are faced with a daunting task if Nigeria is
to
hold elections in time for a May 29 handover, when the
current
Administration's constitutional term of office expires. If
worse-case estimates of under- and multiple-registration are
to
be believed, as many as half of the 60 million voters
registrations could be invalid and an equal number of voters
could have been disenfranchised. These are the worst-case
numbers, and it probably is not that bad. However, the
public
at large increasingly mistrusts INEC and appears ready to
believe almost any charge of incompetence or malfeasance.
Without firm support by Nigeria's political leadership, tacit
or
explicit agreement among elites to scale back manipulation, a
more confident yet less officious INEC and a concomitant
provision of adequate resources quickly, Nigeria's Fourth
Republic could be headed for a disruption of the 2003
electoral
calendar.
JETER