The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has guaranteed all Nigerians that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) will “function optimally” during the March 11 gubernatorial and state assembly elections to be held in 28 states.
In Nigeria’s recent presidential, senate, and national assembly elections, BVAS technology was employed for the first time in a general election. Nonetheless, there were technological issues, and questions have been raised over the validity of the February 25 elections.
The election body was criticized by Nigerians on social media. Similarly, a significant number of election losers and opposition party members have questioned the electoral body’s official results.
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Yakubu Mahmood, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), announced in Abuja on Saturday that BVAS “would be deployed once more” for voter accreditation and result management, notwithstanding the difficulties encountered during the general elections.
As witnessed in recent elections, BVAS has sanitized voter accreditation.
Since last week, the Commission has escalated its technical evaluation to fix issues, especially with result uploads.
We’re convinced the system will work optimally.
INEC retrains temporary staff
According to reports from polling places, several election officials struggled to operate the BVAS machine on February 25. In order to prevent process delays or compromises at any point, the INEC chairwoman noted that additional refresher training would be provided for the ad hoc workers.
“Any personnel deemed to have been careless, whether they are regular or ad hoc officials, including collation and returning officers, shall be excluded from the upcoming elections.”
Assuring that INEC would “work harder to solve the issues experienced” in the previous election, Yakubu Mahmood commended the efforts of all Nigerians.
The Commission would like to express its gratitude to Nigerians once more for their tolerance and understanding. We do not consider this to be standard. We also value the nationalism displayed by political, traditional, religious, and local leaders who urged restraint.
The Commission also recognizes the importance of the heads of election observation missions, some of whom are still present. We urge such missions to take into account including the governorship and state assembly elections in their observations, not only because they are an essential component of the general election for which they are accredited but also because they are just as significant as the presidential election.
“Similarly, the Commission thanks all domestic observers for their early findings, which will greatly assist us in concluding the 2023 general election.” “The full reports are anticipated.”