The head of research and strategy, Kimpact Development Initiative, and a democracy data analyst, Oluwafemi Adebayo has said that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) cannot verify party membership registers manually, describing such an exercise as practically impossible due to its logistical demands.
He said this while speaking in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Monday.
“INEC wants to try to do this manually, then it becomes logistically heavy and very impossible to be able to do. INEC is mandated to verify signatures manually. If they attempt to do that, apparently, it’s going to be logistically heavy and extremely—in short, it’s practically impossible to be able to do that,” he stressed.
He instead proposed that INEC could rely on statistical models and data-driven approaches, alongside the use of technology, to verify and assess the credibility of party membership registers more efficiently.
“They could use statistical, you know, processes or models to be able to, you know, verify this statistically. Again, they could use technology to be able to do this,” he suggested.
Adebayo further noted that technology-based verification could be strengthened if party membership data is properly linked with unique identity systems such as the National Identification Number (NIN), allowing for more reliable cross-checking and reducing the chances of inflated or duplicated records.
“They could expressly use technology. For instance, each of these individuals submitted their NIN.”
Adding, he said that while NIN can help verify records, duplication may still occur without strong safeguards, and effective use would require proper coordination and checks by parties and institutions.
“Then there could also be duplication even using multiple—we don’t know the guardrails that maybe the parties put in place to avoid duplication even at the point of registration. But INEC could possibly work with NIMC to be able to authenticate all of this,” he noted.
Stressing the need for INEC and NIMC to establish strong inter-agency protocols to prevent data breaches when handling and sharing sensitive personal data, Adebayo said:
“That speaks to INEC’s data protocol itself, which is a very important conversation because the digital right is key. But again, the custodian of NIN is NIMC. The custodian of the party’s register is INEC. But these are just inter-agency conversation and ensure for them to also put protocols in place to ensure that there are no data breach. Data protection is ensured because these are very important. But again, it calls to also the capacity of each of these institutions because even INEC itself as of today ought to have a kind of mutual understanding of how they can link NIN even to the voters’ register for today.”
Favour Odima
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