By Rev Fr Gerald Nwafor
The word technical glitch may not be a new word, but the way the Nigerian government has been using it in the recent past has become a source of worry. It was first brought to our notice by the INEC (Independent National Electoral Commission) officials in the last presidential election of 2023. It was a source of worry when the presidential results could not be uploaded electronically as promised by INEC, and the word “Technical Glitch” was used by the INEC officials. The ultimate damage that was done to the Nigerian citizens was done under the cover of a technical glitch.
The pain has not gone away when JAMB (Joint Admission and Matriculation Board) fired the whole country with a technical glitch in marking of the papers and the results published, which was targeted at the Igbo people of Nigeria. The INEC glitch was targeted at the Igbo-born presidential candidate. Now, there is another glitch from the WAEC (West African Examination Council) side of the divide. WAEC was involved in the technical glitch of last year, but because people were focused on the JAMB result, WAEC went unnoticed. Today, we are not being proactive about this glitch, but I am sure that this glitch will soon go into the banking industry, and people’s money can vanish in one technical glitch.
The government will be thinking that it favors them to win elections and to stay in power. They should remember that the world is going global, and medical treatment can be handled electronically. They should not think that it will end with voters only. What goes around comes around; it has gone into the educational sector willy-nilly. No evil diminishes in the face of laxity. It will grow, it will fester, and it will become a cancer.
I remember when kidnapping started in the Niger Delta, and people were saying that it was oil money that attracted the kidnappers. The government was not ready to confront the menace until it became a big industry all over Nigeria. Likewise, the Boko Haram effect in the North, the North thought they would use it to take back power and quash it. No, it doesn’t work like that. Today, there are over 20 small terrorist organizations in the northern part of Nigeria. Glitch has been two years now in the lexicon of the Nigerian people. The earlier we stop it, the better.
Remember, Anambra State is going into a fight against the ruling party (APC) for the soul of a political party formed by one of their sons, APGA (All Progressive Grand Alliance). If this glitch of a thing is not nipped in the bud, I can assure you that it will be used against the people of Anambra State this November. However ridiculous that may sound, the court of first and second instance will always have glitches in the judgment, which is why the LP (Labor Party) has two sections, because there is a glitch in the interpretation of the judgment. I am afraid that this glitch of a thing will end in Nigeria because it was an Okada ride who told me that he cannot come to the meeting because he had a glitch with his Okada. Some people laughed, but I saw this not as a laughing matter. It is a new way of defrauding people of their votes, academic property, and emotional stability. It is still a growing trend, but if we fail to act now, it will be a way of life by 2027.
The NAFDAC (National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control) official came to the drug market in Onitsha, Aba, Port Harcourt, and Lagos and raided the shops and stores owned by the people of Eastern Nigeria. Now the House Committee on Drugs is asking them how much they made from the raid and how much the government has spent on the program. The chairperson could not say anything because she did not expect the committee to ask her about the money they were taking from the shop owners before they could be allowed to reopen their shops. After a long question and answer session, the NAFDAC officials could not give an account of anything they did in Onitsha, Aba, Lagos, and PH. The sitting was adjourned. I do not want to predict anything, but I am pretty sure that in the next meeting, they will inform the house members that there was a technical glitch in the system, which is why they could not give an account of the numbers of stores they raided and the amount of money they collected from the market men and women. Before the technical glitch, it was either off your mic or go to court, but that one has been overtaken by events, and people are wiser now. A technical glitch is sellable since not many people know about the internet and computers.
The road we are travelling on now, with technical glitches, will not save us but rather destroy us as a nation. Technology has been modified so well that glitches rarely happen. Now people open up apps from their room, and it works efficiently. Since I started using the internet in 1998, I have not heard about a technical glitch till last year’s presidential election in Nigeria. With our phones, we can reach anywhere in the world and connect with any app. How come the government of Nigeria cannot manage about 38 million people who voted? The government agency cannot manage about 6 million students who took JAMB and WAEC. There is something they are not telling us. I also remember that the Amazon company, which was supposed to manage the electronic part of the election, came to court to say that there was no technical glitch in the system. If there is no technical glitch in the system, as admitted by Amazon, it means there is a human glitch. Human glitches are the most dangerous because humans are created to take care of the machines. If there is a human glitch, as the case may have shown in the INEC organization of the election, it means that all the machines would have glitches since the operators of the machines had glitches.
May we eradicate the word glitches from our system and move forward to hitch to a glitch-free system. A glitch again in the system this November in the Anambra election is possible if we fail to be awake on election day.
Finally, this glitch should not happen again in the 2027 presidential election so that the will of the people will prevail and the proper result of our students will be published, be it from the north or from the south.
