Is APC Afraid of INEC’s BVAS, IReV?

The Independent National Electoral Commission’s decision to deploy both the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System and Election Result Viewing Portal in next year’s elections may have unsettled the All Progressives Congress, Adedayo Akinwale writes

With 75 days to the 2023 elections, the All Progressives Congress (APC) appears to be uncomfortable with the insistence by  the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deploy Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Election Result Viewing Portal (IReV) for the elections.

Both BVAS and IReV were introduced by the electoral body to promote the credibility of the electoral process.

The introduction of the initiatives by INEC may not be unconnected with what was experienced in the 2019 general election when some states in the North-east ravaged by Boko Haram insurgency churned out more astonishing figures than most of the peaceful states in the South. Also, in some cases like the North-west, child voters were caught at polling boots.

BVAS is a technological device used to identify and accredit voters’ fingerprints and facial recognition before voting. The device is also used for capturing images of the polling unit result sheet (Form EC8A) and uploading the image of the result sheet online. 

IReV on the other hand is an online portal where polling unit-level results are uploaded directly from the polling unit, transmitted, and published for the public. At the front end of the online portal, members of the public can create personal accounts with which they can gain access to all uploaded results stored as PDF files.

 IReV was first introduced by INEC in 2020 when a by-election was conducted in Nasarawa State. The BVAS was also used in the Ekiti and Osun states’ governorship elections, with the electoral body and stakeholders in the electoral process describing it as a success story.

Both technologies have since been given legal backing with the signing into law of the Electoral Act 2022 by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The immediate past Akwa Ibom State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mr. Mike Igini recently said that the Electoral Act 2022 had created moral panic among political parties and their candidates ahead of the 2023 elections.

Iginni noted that the reality of what was passed was that power has now been returned back to the people.

He said: “With the 2022 Electoral Act that has secured INEC innovations, if only the people are aware that power has been taken back to them, that the polling unit is now the centre of the universe in our electoral process. Elections are now won and lost at the polling units, no longer at Ward collation centres, local government collation centres. This is the basis of the moral panic in the land today. Today, that legal framework is the basis of the moral panic in the land.”

A recent statement by the National Chairman of the APC, Senator Adamu  Abdullahi may have justified Iginni’s claims. Adamu had expressed strong reservations over the deployment of modern technology in the next year’s general election.

The APC chairman made his views known when he received a delegation of the Commonwealth Pre-Election team at the national secretariat of the party in Abuja. He was of the opinion that the federal government was yet to give Nigerians stable electricity, adding that it would be a gamble to allow electronic transmission of results. 

He said: “Our concern is how ready are we to deploy some of these technologies as regards transmission because we are taking a major step in transmitting election results in real-time. To transmit results, every part of the nation Nigeria I’m not sure that the network covers it, I know that even in parts of Abuja there is no network and we have from now till February when in substantial parts of the country there is no electricity.”

The presidential candidate of the APC, Senator Bola Tinubu, while speaking at Chatham House, London last week, also echoed Adamu’s sentiments when he said INEC was yet to assure Nigerians of the workability of the BVAS.

 “We are still building confidence in our democratic and voting system. INEC is yet to assure us during this election that electronic transmission, the technology being used for accreditation and the total vote count is reliable, dependable and assuring in our democratic process before we introduce a complicated element of ballot counting,” he reportedly said.

Similarly, the National Organising Secretary of the APC, Suleiman Argungu also claimed that electronic transmission would not work in his home state of Kebbi.

“As a rider to what the national chairman just said about INEC transmitting results directly during the coming election, apart from the issue of electricity that is unstable, a lot of the villages and communities bordering other countries, for instance, my state Kebbi that is bordering two nations during the previous elections the network of Nigeria for all the networks, Glo, MTN, Airtel, you can’t get them. If you want to get them you have to use the number of the other countries to reach them. So, during the election, I don’t see how the transmission of results will work. I see it coming.”

Expectedly, the Coalition of Union Political Parties (CUPP) said the reservations expressed by the ruling party had confirmed its intelligence report that APC allegedly wanted to carry out digital vote buying in the 2023 elections.

In a statement by the spokesman of CUPP, Ikenga Ugochinyere, the coalition said with the emergence of BVAS and IReV, “those in power who connive with electoral officials to recklessly cancel manual votes on their way to collation centers will be disappointed.

He threatened that CUPP would not tolerate any plot to sack the INEC chairman.

After immense backlash, the ruling party said it was not against the deployment of BVAS and IReV in the 2023 elections. The party insisted that its government remained committed to the highest levels of electoral transparency and democratic consolidation in our country.

The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Felix Morka while addressing a press conference recently in Abuja said media reports that APC was against BVAS and IReV were false and constituted an unfair misrepresentation of the chairman’s comments.

He said: “To be clear, Chairman Adamu did not kick against the deployment of BVAS or electronic transmission of results as erroneously reported by sections of the media.  The Chairman only expressed concern about electricity or telecommunication networks, he was not in any way kicking against BVAS or electronic transmission of results. Our party is in full support of BVAS and the electronic transmission of results, that doesn’t mean if there are concerns it shouldn’t be expressed.”

 However, the uncompromising electoral body has told anyone that cares to listen that there was no going back on the deployment of BVAS and IReV in next year’s elections. 

The Chairman of the commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, told journalists in Lagos recently that INEC was set to transmit the 2023 poll results in real-time from 176,846 polling units across the country.

He said the commission had identified telecommunications “blind spots” in some areas and was already in touch with the Nigerian Communications Commission with a view to finding a solution to them.

Will APC use power of incumbency to sabotage INEC’s planned use of BVAS and IReV in 2023 elections? Nigerians and the international community are watching.