Technological Innovations and the Performance of the Independent National Electoral Commission in Cross River State, Nigeria in the 2015 and 2019 General Elections

Public institutions in Nigeria like every other country are created with some specific mandates to render some essential services to government and the general public. The Independent National Electoral Commission was established with the mandate to conduct elections that usher in new sets of leaders in a political dispensation. Over the years, however, the commission has faced the challenges of conducting credible and acceptable election in the country as cases of malpractices are prevalent in the electoral process. In a bid to improve on its performance, the commission has introduced various administrative innovations like Bio-metric identification systems, smart card reader and delimitation of voting points to tackle the challenges in election administration. Therefore, this study examined whether there is an association between technological innovations by INEC and the conduct of elections in Cross River State. The research is quantitative in nature and adopted the survey research design. The study relied on both primary and secondary sources of information and the questionnaire was used to elicit information. The study adopted the multistage sampling technique which allowed the use of stratified, quota, purposive and accidental techniques to arrive at a sample size of one thousand two hundred (1200). Data generated were analyzed using the chi-square statistical technique to test the two hypotheses. The result of the tested hypotheses shows that the introduction of technologies and innovations such as the smart card reader, biometric voter registration, permanent voter card, have reduced the incidence of multiple registration, multiple voting, results manipulation and voter impersonation to the barest minimum. It is therefore concluded that with these innovations if properly and generally applied, the conduct of elections in the state will significantly improve as shown by the technologies deployed by the commission so far. It is therefore recommended that there should be an institutional framework to give legal backings to the various innovations introduced by INEC to put an end to contention of its legality in our electoral process. The commission should fully automate all the electoral processes from registration to collation of results. Also, the commission should periodically update and revalidate its voter’s registers before any general elections to detect and remove dead voters.

Keywords: Technological; Innovations; Performance; INEC; Smart-Card Reader; Bio-metric