PRESS STATEMENT ON THE OCCASION OF THE FORMAL LAUNCHING OF E-COMPARE EKITI 2018 GOVERNORSHIP ELECTION MOBILE AND WEB APPLICATIONS AUTOCOLLATION SYSTEM FOR POLITICAL PARTIES

PRESS STATEMENT ON THE OCCASION OF THE FORMAL LAUNCHING OF E-COMPARE EKITI 2018 GOVERNORSHIP ELECTION MOBILE AND WEB APPLICATIONS AUTOCOLLATION SYSTEM FOR POLITICAL PARTIES

Saturday 7^th July, 2018 – Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

It is with profound gratitude to Almighty God that I make this address. I wish to recognize all dignitaries and speakers that have taken out of their busy schedules to grace this occasion. I also thank all participants who have put aside one thing or the other to attend this event. For all the representatives for political parties who have left the campaign trail to attend this event, we are most grateful.  A special thanks to the Election Monitor team which has worked passionately and assiduously to make this happen.

Election Monitor (EM) is one of the fifty-four (54) Election Observer groups accredited by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to observe the 2018 Ekiti State Governorship Election. Election Monitor has several observers in its mission, who will be deployed across all the local government areas of Ekiti State on Saturday 7th July, 2018.

One of the most critical aspects of the Election Day process is the collation of results. Election results from the polling units are collated first at the ward or registration area (RA) before being forwarded to the local government area (LGA) before the final collation at the state collation centre. Since this is a governorship election the state collation serves as the last point for collation.

Each political party fielding a candidate during any election is entitled to a copy of the results at all levels. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) does this for transparency of the Election Day process especially collation. However many political parties do not take advantage of these results provided by INEC to develop their own custom built internal collation system. As a result some have made accusations of manipulation of election results in the past but have not been able to substantiate it as a result of having no alternate collation system. It is critical that political parties make optimum use of the copies of the official results provided for them by INEC to ensure that they carefully and thoroughly monitor the election collation results process to ensure that they are satisfied with the process.

Election Monitor has developed this innovative and first of its kind mobile and web applications for quick and effective internal collation of election results by political parties. Having such a system would ensure that political parties are able to compare their own collation with that of the electoral management body. Where there are discrepancies the parties through their representatives could make the observations to the collation officials to ensure optimum accuracy of the collation process.

With the political parties being an integral part of the electoral process, it is Election Monitor’s opinion that these mobile and web applications would strengthen the capacities of political parties during elections as well as ensure greater transparency in the electoral process. It would also bring greater acceptability to final results released because parties can attest to their veracity. In addition there would be fewer if any allegations which cannot be founded which in turn will reduce tension and ensure smoother election conduct. Ultimately this will increase the propensity for peaceful elections.

It should also be noted that Election Monitor also launched an innovative mobile application, called ‘GetRegistered Naija’ on July 14^th, 2017 to aid voter registration efforts in Nigeria.  These latest applications clearly shows Election Monitor’s consistency in the development of solution specific and need-based technology solutions to address key gaps and challenges in Nigeria’s electoral process. Election Monitor will keep advancing the process to strengthen elections in Nigeria.

This Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solution is quite innovative with the following features:

• ·         It enables real-time collation of election results using mobile phone technology.
• ·      It has a web interface to enable easy display of collated results as well as originally imputed polling unit results. 
• ·         Each political party is provided with a user account and password (created by the party) to access the platform.
• ·         The platform is not hosted on the Internet but uses internet protocols for the transmission of results from the mobile phones to the results page. This means that non-users cannot access the results display page online, since it has no web address.
• ·     The mobile app is built on Android which is one of the most popular used my Nigerian mobile phone users.
• ·     There are graphical displays of results data for all levels of collation (Ward/RA, LGA and State).
• ·   Polling unit names and numbers are indicated for easy identification by party agents entering the results.
• ·     All 2,195 polling units are provided for in the applications to provide an exact collation mirror for the political parties.

It is our intention that this ICT tool would strengthen the political party’s abilities to monitor the Election Day processes more effectively thereby creating acceptability of the released results.

Today we are launching this unique and innovative technology tool with the belief that our efforts will ensure that adequate and proper observation of the 2018 Ekiti State Governorship election is achieved. For the sake of our nation and our unborn generations, it is pertinent that every stakeholder especially political parties support INEC to ensure that the 2018 Ekiti Governorship Election is transparent, free, fair, credible and hopefully conclusive on the first ballot.

Election Monitor urges the people of Ekiti state to remain law abiding and come out massively on Saturday, 14^th July 2018 to cast their votes.

Thank you all once again for attending this landmark event. I wish us all successful, impactful and fruitful deliberations. God Bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.