US embassy cable - 02ABUJA3139

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