Terms of Service & Command Charter
1. Acceptance of Terms & Operational Clearance
By establishing a Command workspace, authenticating via single-sign-on or OTP, accessing the situation room, or deploying field operatives on the Bastion Platform, you ("Customer", "Command Principal", or "Authorized User") enter into a legally binding Master Service Agreement with Bastion Technologies Infrastructure Ltd ("Bastion", "we", or "us").
If you are executing this agreement on behalf of a political party, campaign organization, candidate committee, or observer mission, you represent and warrant that you possess the full corporate, statutory, and institutional authority to bind that entity to these Terms.
2. Recognition of INEC Constitutional Authority & Non-Usurpation
Electoral Act 2022 Statutory Demarcation
Customer expressly acknowledges and agrees that under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) and Section 65 of the Electoral Act 2022, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is the sole constitutional body empowered to announce official election results and make declarations of winners.
Bastion is engineered strictly as an internal situational awareness, parallel vote tabulation (PVT) mathematical model, and evidentiary documentation system. Customer warrants that it will not utilize Bastion projections, preliminary tabulations, or media assets to make unauthorized public victory declarations in violation of Section 128 of the Electoral Act 2022.
3. Telecommunications Carrier Outages & Force Majeure Disclaimer
Customer acknowledges that election environments and crisis zones in Nigeria are subject to physical, political, and infrastructural hazards beyond Bastion's operational control.
Third-Party Carrier Exclusions: Bastion relies on commercial public telecommunications networks (including MTN, Airtel, Globacom, and 9mobile) and global satellite constellations. Bastion expressly disclaims all liability for:
- Regional or localized mobile network shutdowns, carrier fiber cuts, or tower power failures;
- Government-mandated telecommunications throttling or electronic countermeasures/jamming;
- Atmospheric satellite GPS degradation inside reinforced concrete buildings or heavy tree canopies;
- SMS delivery latencies caused by national carrier shortcode aggregators.
While Bastion provisions multi-carrier failovers (including 2G USSD/SMS fallback and cellular BTS triangulation), Bastion does not warrant uninterrupted or error-free network transmission in areas where terrestrial telecommunications operators are fully offline.
4. Absolute Limitation of Liability & Exclusion of Damages
IMPORTANT: READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY. IT LIMITS BASTION'S FINANCIAL LIABILITY TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.
A. TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY CAP: TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, BASTION’S TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THIS AGREEMENT, THE PLATFORM, ANY DOWNTIME, SECURITY INCIDENT, OR LOSS OF TELEMETRY DATA, REGARDLESS OF THE LEGAL THEORY (WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, OR INDEMNITY), SHALL NEVER EXCEED THE TOTAL FEES ACTUALLY PAID BY CUSTOMER TO BASTION IN THE THREE (3) MONTHS IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO LIABILITY, OR THE SUM OF ONE MILLION NAIRA (₦1,000,000 NGN), WHICHEVER AMOUNT IS LESS.
B. COMPLETE WAIVER OF CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES: IN NO EVENT SHALL BASTION, ITS DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, SHAREHOLDERS, EMPLOYEES, AFFILIATES, OR SUBCONTRACTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, PUNITIVE, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY NATURE WHATSOEVER, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO:
- LOSS OF POLITICAL OFFICE, CAMPAIGN DEFEAT, OR ELECTORAL CONTESTATION OUTCOMES;
- LOSS OF POLITICAL REPUTATION, CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS, OR DONOR SUPPORT;
- COSTS OF TRIBUNAL LITIGATION, EXPERT WITNESS FEES, OR LEGAL REPRESENTATION;
- CIVIL UNREST, PROPERTY DAMAGE, PHYSICAL INJURY, OR UNLAWFUL THIRD-PARTY ASSAULTS IN THE FIELD.
5. Comprehensive Customer Indemnification
Customer agrees to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Bastion, its parent entity, subsidiaries, officers, directors, software architects, agents, and employees from and against any and all claims, regulatory actions, administrative fines (including Nigeria Data Protection Commission penalties), damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorney fees) arising directly or indirectly from:
- Any breach by Customer or its field personnel of these Terms or the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023;
- Any unlawful, defamatory, or false media assets, unverified Form EC8A figures, or incitement uploaded to the system;
- Any unauthorized, rogue, or illegal actions taken by Customer's field agents, security escorts, or coordinators;
- Any subpoenas, search warrants, or court appearances arising from inter-party election petition litigation.
6. Evidence Act 2011 Section 84 Computer Integrity Warranty
Bastion warrants that its underlying server systems, database append-only audit mechanisms, and cryptographic hashing engines operate in regular, continuous operation without electronic tampering, satisfying the statutory conditions of Section 84(2) of the Evidence Act 2011.
Upon request by Customer's Lead Counsel, Bastion will provide a formal Affidavit of Electronic System Operator accompanied by a certified SHA-256 hash manifest for submission before Election Petitions Tribunals.
7. Commercial Licensing & Non-Refundable Nature of Deployment
Platform access is provisioned on a per-election-cycle or subscription tier basis. All subscription and activation fees are strictly non-refundable once a Command workspace is provisioned, due to immediate allocation of dedicated multi-tenant cloud compute instances, cellular SMS gateway bandwidth, and INEC territorial geofence indexing.
8. Governing Law & Mandatory Binding Arbitration
Governing Law: This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the substantive laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Binding Arbitration: Any dispute, controversy, or claim arising out of or relating to this contract shall be settled exclusively by final and binding arbitration administered under the Arbitration and Mediation Act 2023.
Seat of Arbitration: The seat and legal place of arbitration shall be Abuja, Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria. The language of arbitration shall be English.
Class Action Waiver: Customer agrees that any arbitration or dispute resolution proceeding will be conducted solely on an individual basis, and Customer waives any right to assert class-action or representative claims.