Featured

Opinion: INEC Manual Collation Of Results, Recipe For Rigging

Published

3 years ago

November 5, 2023

Maduike Uzochukwu

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC’s, resolve to continue with the manual collation of election results at the ward and Local Government Areas is no doubt supporting the lowly accepted party and candidate to rig the election.

The upcoming Off-cycle Governorship Election in the three states of Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo slated for November 11 may witness another round of rigging as observed by various election observer groups especially going by the lessons of the last general elections and the ruling of the apex court ; because we can’t be doing the same old things and expect a different result.

Let no party , candidate and the voters be deceived, because announcing the manually collated results from the Local Government Areas by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC,would imply accepting a rigged or influenced results. It a well known fact that at the LGAs, results use to change, mutilations occur and even results sheets that look exactly as that of the INEC use to be smuggled in and it replaces the original results sheets from the polling units.

The iRev would have rescued the ugly trend but the ruling of the apex court has dashed the hope of the electorates votes counting.

However , not minding the institutional disappointment, patriotic gubernatorial candidates, parties, and the electorates are almost ready and by now must have made decisions on who to cast their ballots for, but for some unpopular candidates who may find it difficult to have majority votes from the voters at the polling units by now must have perfected their plans to rig the election through rewriting results, mutilation of results sheets, intimidation of voters, inducement too.

These category of politicians are not planning to woo the majority of the votes at the polling units but have perfected plans with the unscrupulous INEC Electoral Officers, EOs at the LGAs, Adhoc staff and the security agencies to help perfect there rigging plans against the will of the people.

While other politicians are planning to block such inhumane actions from taking place with little or no support from the electoral umpire, judiciary and the security agencies the system does not permit them because poverty has been deployed by the ruling class as a weapon of the masses, voter bribing and inducement have become part of the election.

How would they stop the evil when majority of the law enforcement agents, INEC adhoc staff and EOs have decided to collude with these unpatriotic citizens to sway votes in their favour.

Recall that in 2022 Anambra, Osun and Ekiti elections , the INEC made sure that election results were uploaded to the iRev in real time by cutting off the middlemen shenanigans when the ballot leaves the polling units to the ward and LG collation centres and the Commission was praises for that singular action but couldn’t do the same on February 25 , 2023 Presidential Election results, making the public to accuse the INEC of deliberate collusion with the ruling APC. Can the INEC upload results on the iRev in real time?

Even though the commission has promised to do so, can the parties and electorates trust the INEC , owing to supreme court position on the upload of results on the iRev? The court ruled that iRev is not a collation system; so the INEC will still manually collate results at the LGAs. This implies that the weaker acceptable parties will definitely be coming out stronger because the results will definitely change as always.

In Imo and Kogi States, the APC is in vantage position to use the instrument of the law and federal might as always to sway votes, other opposition parties like the LP, PDP, SDP will definitely suffer unless they are ready to march the strength of the APC and in Bayelsa State , the PDP ought to have advantage of using the serving LGAs Chairmen party structure to it’s favour, but the APC may have the Federal might at its disposal; but other opposition parties like the LP, SDP etc will not be favoured. How can the opposition survive this?

The INEC unpatriotic staff as usual would look away and at the end of the whole shenanigans, whatever results brought before the State REC will be announced, the commission’s announcement is authentic and the aggrieved parties will be ask to go to court as usual because the onus of proof lies on who alleges.

The 2022 Electoral Act as amended didn’t solve the problem of middlemen tampering with results by deliberately making it optional, but gave the INEC the power to organise election using whichever collation systems but the iRev which ought to be of immense help is without ambiguity a non collation system. So this has given the ruling parties in the States the opportunity to do as it please them, bring the results to the REC and it will be announced.

Since, the BVAS machine is mandatory, and no more the use of incident forms, the opposition parties should ensure that they have reliable party polling agents so as to turn in the Form EC8 results sheets to the party immediately after the election and are ready to testify in court as supponae witnesses are no longer acceptable in election petition cases because the law says that all witness evidence and the witness name must be front loaded along side the petition within certain stipulated days.

The continued manual collation of results from the LGAs has not helped in stopping rigging rather it supports it , because it favours the ruling party in the states, whose party chieftains are LG Chairmen that wield a lot of brigandage influence.

The INEC should ensure transparency by allowing all genuine party agents access to the LGA Collation Centres or better still, insist on announcing the results uploaded on the iRev from the polling units so as to restore the electorates confidence and it’s battered image from the last general elections .

The law enforcement agents on election duty should play by the rules of engagement and not in anyway support election rigging .

The media, civil societies, NGOs, election observers should be allowed unfettered access to the LGAs manual collation centres, if possible video record it for credibility purposes.

INEC and politicians must rise up to the challenge of building a stronger democratic government instead of using the manual collation of results at the LGAs to impose unpopular candidate on the citizens of Imo, Kogi and Bayelsa states come November 11,2023.

Maduike Uzochukwu is a Senior Journalist and Public Affairs analyst, Writes from Abuja.

Share on Facebook

Business

Turning Africa’s Raw Materials Into Wealth: The ARMS 2026 Industrial Agenda

Published

5 days ago

September 29, 2026

The Gleamer

By Joel Ajayi

For decades, Africa’s vast natural resources have powered industries and economies far beyond the continent, while many African countries have remained largely exporters of unprocessed commodities and importers of finished products.

That familiar pattern is now coming under renewed scrutiny as policymakers, researchers, investors and industrialists seek to change the direction of Africa’s resource economy.

At the centre of that conversation is the second edition of the Africa Raw Materials Summit (ARMS 2026), scheduled for October 19 and 20 at the Abuja Continental Hotel, Abuja, under the theme: “From African Feedstock to African Factories.”

Organised by the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), the summit is being positioned as more than another gathering of policymakers and industry stakeholders. It is intended to provide a platform for confronting the structural challenges that have kept African raw materials largely disconnected from local manufacturing.

Africa has for years operated largely within a “pit-to-port” economic model, exporting raw materials while importing expensive finished products.

Speaking at a press conference ahead of the summit on Tuesday in Abuja, the Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of RMRDC, Prof. Nnanyelugo Martin Ike-Muonso, said the event would bring together policymakers, investors, researchers, technology providers and industrialists to develop practical strategies for transforming Africa’s abundant natural resources into industrial wealth.

The challenge, therefore, is not simply the abundance of resources, but the continent’s ability to transform those resources into industrial value, employment, technology and wealth within Africa.

Nigeria alone, according to the RMRDC, has more than $582.4 billion in documented non-renewable natural resources, while the wider continent possesses substantial deposits of critical minerals, agricultural raw materials and industrial feedstock.

Yet, the benefits of this resource endowment have often been constrained by inadequate processing capacity, weak infrastructure, limited technology, financing gaps and fragmented regional value chains.

From Dialogue to Industrial Action

ARMS 2026 builds on the maiden edition held in May 2025, which attracted more than 1,000 delegates from across the world.

The inaugural summit also witnessed the unveiling of the Ten-Year Raw Materials Transformation Roadmap (2025–2034) by the Minister of State for Industry, Senator John Owen Enoh.

The roadmap was designed around areas including technological capability, climate-resilient processing and backward integration, establishing a policy framework for greater domestic utilisation of Africa’s raw materials.

The second edition is expected to move the conversation further by bringing policy, capital, technology and industrial stakeholders around practical mechanisms for turning raw materials into locally manufactured products.

One of the major proposals highlighted by the RMRDC is the 30 per cent Mandatory Value Addition Bill, which seeks to establish a statutory minimum level of value addition to Nigerian raw materials before export.

The Council says the proposed framework could support job creation, import substitution, foreign-exchange conservation and increased manufacturing contribution to the economy.

Building the Infrastructure for Value Addition

The industrial transformation envisaged by ARMS 2026 goes beyond legislation.

A major concern is the “missing middle” between where raw materials are produced and where factories are located.

Poor transportation networks, inadequate cold-chain facilities, weak rural roads, limited testing and certification infrastructure and border-related delays can make locally sourced materials more expensive and less competitive.

Consequently, logistics and infrastructure constitute one of the five principal pillars of the summit.

The objective is to develop more reliable corridors connecting farms and mines with processing centres and manufacturing facilities, thereby reducing losses and improving the movement of industrial inputs.

The Digital Dimension

Technology is also becoming an important part of the Council’s strategy.

The RMRDC says it has developed the Nigeria Integrated Information Statistical System for Raw Materials and Products (NISSRAMP), described as a digital repository containing information on feedstock deposits, specifications, production outputs and industrial absorption rates.

The Council has also highlighted its transition towards paperless operations and its certification as a Data Controller/Processor of Major Importance by the Nigeria Data Protection Commission.

Such digital infrastructure could provide investors and manufacturers with better information about the availability and characteristics of raw materials while supporting more informed industrial planning.

Turning Waste Into Industrial Inputs

Another major component of ARMS 2026 is the proposed expansion of the circular economy.

The summit will examine how agricultural by-products, mine tailings, scrap metals and biomass can be recovered and reused as inputs for new production processes rather than being treated simply as waste.

The RMRDC argues that such an approach could lower raw-material costs while supporting more sustainable and climate-resilient manufacturing systems.

For Africa, where industrial expansion must increasingly balance economic development with environmental considerations, waste industrialisation could become an important part of the continent’s manufacturing conversation.

From National Production to African Value Chains

The African Continental Free Trade Area is another important element of the summit’s agenda.

The RMRDC sees AfCFTA as an opportunity to create regional value chains in which raw materials sourced in one African country can be processed and supplied to manufacturers in another.

Under such a model, Africa would move beyond simply exporting commodities to external markets and develop stronger internal networks for supplying chemicals, refined minerals, agricultural inputs and other industrial materials across national borders.

This approach places regional integration at the heart of Africa’s industrialisation strategy.

Bridging Research and Capital

A recurring weakness in many developing economies is the gap between research and commercialisation.

Innovations may emerge from universities, research institutions and laboratories without receiving the financing, equipment or market connections required to become commercially viable.

ARMS 2026 intends to address that gap through technology commercialisation and capital linkages, connecting research outputs with investors, development finance institutions and industrial off-takers.

The RMRDC has also cited partnerships with the Bank of Industry for commercial-scale post-harvest processing and a South-South technology-transfer partnership with the National Innovation Centre par Excellence in Shanghai, China.

A Larger Industrial Conversation

The scale of ARMS 2026 is expected to be significantly larger than the maiden edition.

The organisers project more than 1,800 delegates from all 54 African countries and global industrial partners.

The programme will feature high-level policy dialogues, technical panels, an advanced raw materials and technology exhibition, industrial site visits and the African Raw Materials Industry Awards.

The exhibition, in particular, is expected to showcase locally fabricated processing machinery, advanced domestic materials, green chemicals and engineered commercial inputs.

Beyond the speeches and exhibitions, however, the real significance of ARMS 2026 will ultimately depend on what happens after the summit.

Africa’s challenge has never been a shortage of raw materials. The more difficult question has been how to transform those resources into factories, products, skilled employment, technology and sustainable economic opportunities.

For Nigeria and the rest of the continent, the proposed shift from “pit-to-port” to “feedstock-to-factory” therefore represents a broader debate about the future structure of African economies.

ARMS 2026 seeks to place that debate firmly on the industrial agenda — with value addition, technology, finance, infrastructure, circular production and regional trade at the centre.

If the commitments and partnerships generated by the summit translate into measurable industrial activity, the event could provide another platform for Africa to examine how its enormous resource base can support stronger domestic manufacturing.

The message from the organisers is clear: the continent’s raw materials should not only leave African soil as commodities; they should increasingly become the foundation for African industrial production

Share on Facebook