[kictanet] Election fiasco reveals Technological dinosaurs

[robert yawe]

Happy new year to you all and I pray that you are all well.

It is shocking that in this day and age we can actually have the kind of electoral fiasco that has been visited on us by the ECK and Co as well as the political parties.

This draconian problem reared its head when the Orange house was broken into and the computers stolen.  Hon.Nyongo's statement indicated that the objective was to steal the member register.  If I needed to steal the register which from his comments was in electronic form what was the need of taking off with the computer.  Has he ever heard of flash disks,  external hard dis drives and CD/DVD writers.  Technology allows me to steal his data without him every knowing.

After this issue Kivuiti dismissed the SMS service that had been made available by Telkom to enable voters confirm their details.  He even went to the extent of saying he does not know how to send an SMS.  As the IT fraternity in the country can we really escape blame for this fiasco?

The next time was when  I saw Hon. Ruto standing at KICC and screaming himself hoarse over the forms 16 & 16A that had not been received.  It seems he might be using a Nokia 1018 mobile phone (he actually uses a Nokia N series).  

Was it so difficult for the opposition to provide each of their agents with a camera equipped mobile phone that they would have used to to take pictures of the form and also record the returning officer announcing the results.  This would then have been easily sent to party head quarters.

There are 210 or so constituencies in the country and the mobile phones I am talking about cost about 10,000/- each do the math. 

I ask am I the only Kenyan who is aware of such technology or is this entire fiasco a stage managed process.  Even the EU observer teams came equipped as if it was the 12th Century after which they proceeded to make unsupported statements about the result that further inflamed bloodshed.

Maybe its a techie thing to keep in our glass houses and refuse to add value to a process and only send around message (this one included) after the fact.  

It is re-assuring when we remember the Florida fiasco but this not withstanding do we really have a moral standing to point fingers about the election results?

What will be our contribution to stopping this from being repeated in future?
 
Regards

Remember Matiba and his video cameras during the good old days of mulolongo voting?


Robert Yawe
KAY System Technologies Ltd
Phoenix House, 6th Floor
P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200
KEnya 
Tel: +254722511225





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