As general elections slated for next year remain 136 days, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has insisted that there is no going back on the use of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in the 2023 general elections.
The chairman of the commission,Prof Mahmood Yakubu gave the assurance today while delivering his address at an event organized by the National Endowment for Democracy(NED) and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) in Washington DC,United State.
The Chairman said, the commission learnt a lot of lessons from the previous elections conducted under his watch adding that those lessons led the commission to introduce some innovations to make the election transparent and credible.
He added that, the new Electoral Act provided legal backing to those innovations.
He explained further that, the commission, made it possible for BVAS to domicile the data of registered voters in a polling until in the BVAS adding that BVAS also reads the card but in many ways.
He gave the insight of what BVAS has achieved so far;
He said,”It has eliminated multiple accreditation that was observed in previous elections. Now, you are absolutely sure that the person who is accredited is actually the voter and the bearer of the card.
“It has increased public confidence in the outcome of elections as shown in the recent off-cycle elections. People tend to be more confident now with the protection of the process of accreditation using technology.
“It has eliminated the use of the Incident Form. For those of you who have been following our elections for a long time, when the Card Reader was introduced, the machine would read the card, but it may not read the biometrics. So, when it fails to read the biometrics, they then say – give the voter the Incident Form. And though that, many people voted using identity theft. We have eliminated the Incident Form. So, every registered voter must go through the biometric and the facial, and we jokingly say that the only way the two processes can fail, particularly the facial, is when the voter forgets his or her face at home on election.
“The system of using the BVAS for the conduct of elections has come to stay. There’s no going back.
On the issue of Result Viewing (IReV) portal.
INEC Chairman said,Nigeria is perhaps one of the few countries in the world that transmits polling unit level results in real time on election day.
“Proudly, I can say we are the first to introduce it in Africa. I was in Nairobi in August and they did so, but I told my friend, (Wafula) Chebukati, (Chairperson of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission of Kenya) that he must have borrowed the idea from Nigeria, he said
“In 2017, they tried to transmit raw data. But in Nigeria, we say don’t transmit raw data, but transmit scanned images of the polling unit level results which is safer and less susceptible to hacking than transmitting raw figures.
According to him, through IReV, results are uploaded from the polling units in real time and this has increased transparency in result management.
“Some of you here may recall that the Observers’ Reports from 2019 harped on the need for the Commission to ensure transparency in result management. This is our response to the request for greater transparency in result management,”he said
“It has helped us to eliminate the falsification of results at polling unit level to the collation centres. Sometimes, as the results move from the polling unit level where the election is conducted to the collation centres, some of the figures changed. But now everybody sees the results from the polling unit level and some of the political parties that have their own situation rooms actually know the outcome of the elections even before we make an official declaration. But they still have to wait for our official declaration anyway.
“We have deployed the IReV in 105 off-cycle and bye-elections. We believe that the system is robust and we are taking additional measures to safeguard and fortify our web resources generally against threats of attack.
While assuring Nigerians that no one irrespective of physical appearance will be left out in the next year’s exercise,Prof. Mahmood said the commission has created a new Department of Gender and Inclusivity and it has provided the necessary things needed.
“We have provided Assistive Devices for Persons with Disabilities, such as Braille Ballot Guide and Magnifying Glasses for the vision impaired and those living with Albinism. This was specifically recommended by the Albino Foundation, he said
“We work with the Albino Foundation to provide Magnifying Glasses and we work with Inclusive Friends to provide the Braille Jacket, which has the acronyms of political parties in Braille. The person who needs it inserts the ballot paper in the jacket and such person can vote unassisted. But for those who don’t read braille, they can still bring trusted relations on election day.
“We have posters for individuals who are hard of hearing because they also complained that “INEC provided Braille Jackets and Magnifying Glasses, what about us? We can see, but we can’t hear, what do we do?” So, the Commission created posters for them which they can read on election day and we’ll continue to give more to ensure inclusivity.
The Chairman expressed his delight over the enthusiasm of Nigerian Youths which he described as “great” move.
“Majority of our registrants, 71 percent, are young people between the ages of 18 and 34. So, we are excited just as they are excited.
“The more we introduce technology, the more they get excited.
He expressed his concerns over the insecurity in the country which he categorized as “Perennial”
“Are there concerns about the 2023 general election? I’ll be the last to say there are no concerns.
The first concern is the perennial issue of insecurity in different parts of the country, compounded by the traditional issues of thuggery during elections organized by some of the political actors, Mahmood worried
“I say it is a perennial issue because at the end of the day, it is nothing new.
However, the dimension of the insecurity is concerning in the sense that in the past, it was localized or confined to a particular part of the country, the northeast. But now it is more widespread and we are keeping our eyes particularly on the northwest and the southeastern parts of the country.
“Elections are conducted by human beings. We worry about the security of our officials, voters and the materials to be deployed. Without them, we cannot conduct elections.
“We have spoken to the security agencies, they have assured us that the situation will improve before the elections. So, fingers crossed.
“Those who are supposed to secure the environment have assured us that they will secure the environment for us to conduct elections. Our responsibility is to conduct elections.”