CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY

Free, fair and credible elections are central to electoral democracy and provide vital means of empowering voters to hold their leaders accountable. In a multi-party democracy, it behooves both the elected and appointed government officials at all levels of the political system to render periodic account of their stewardship to the populace. However, accountability of election officials in Nigeria has been undermined by the fact that elections in the country are perennially fraught with irregularities. The democratization of politics has been unsuccessful in arresting electoral frauds perpetrated by different political parties and megalomaniac nominees of a particular election. It has also been unable to address the administrative misconduct of officials of Election. The prevalence of electoral irregularities in many transitional democracies, especially in Africa, has accentuated the clamor for and use of voting technologies for uncovering and reducing election frauds. According to Golden, Kramon & Ofosu (2014), “these technological solutions, such as electronic voting machines, 11 polling station webcams and biometric identification equipment, offer the promise of rapid, accurate, and ostensibly tamper-proof innovations that are expected to reduce fraud in the processes of registration, voting or vote count aggregation” (p. 1).

Biometric identification machines authenticate the identity of voters using biometric markers, such as fingerprints, that are almost impossible to counterfeit. The technologies are particularly useful in settings where governments have not previously established reliable or complete paper-based identification systems for their populations (Gelb & Decker, 2012). One of the real issues about the 2015 General Elections in Nigeria was the use of innovative anti-rigging biometric devices. The administration of the elections witnessed the use of Smart Card Reader (SCR) for the authentication of biometric Permanent Voters‟ Cards (PVCs) and the accreditation of voters. The introduction of these devices was necessitated by the fact that reliable voter register and identification mechanism are some of the preconditions for free, fair and credible elections. However, the legality of the device was questioned. Although Section 52 of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended) proscribes electronic voting (e-voting), the SCR is a form of identification, not a means of casting a ballot. The use of the SCR in some quarters experienced glitches in its functionality, thereby leading to manual accreditation of some voters. This 12 attracted negative reactions which consequently fuelled the erroneous conclusion that the Nigerian electoral system is not ripe for the application of such technology. However, it emboldened many disenchanted voters to exercise their franchise because of the assurance and confidence that the new system brought.

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