“In fact, with most (not all) of the data now reported by the states, we have by this morning registered 63,981,460 Nigerians for the coming elections.Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, is going to great lengths to insure a transparent election process despite significant challenges.
“I wish to appeal to all Nigerians to also come out in their numbers for the verification that will take place from February 14 to 18.
“The list will be displayed in all polling units during the period for the public to register their claims and objections.
“This exercise did not take place in the immediate past and that partly explained the problems of the old voter register.
“This is therefore an opportunity for people to deal with irregular entries in the register.
But this part is odd.
“In fact, the commission became a biometric equipment experimental laboratory. On software, we also found many shortcomings.I'd be interested to hear more about this. There are some open source algorithms out there but an algorithm is not a system. Most countries prefer to buy the service rather than create one for themselves.
“Millions of Naira was spent on licenses for software manufacturers who were able to hold the commission to ransom by encrypting data and asking for even more money to decrypt data.
“Consequently, we decided to avoid this type of software peonage by developing our own in-house registration software based on the open source principle.”
Countries with high corruption levels and at a high risk of electoral violence could be courting disaster if the technology is seen to be in the hands of one party.
