CAN BVAS BE TRUSTED IN 2023 ELECTIONS?
Justice Tertsea Kume-led Osun Election Tribunal has delivered a judgement that is a dangerous signal to 2023 elections. The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) used in 749 polling units for the July 16, 2022 election have disappointed Nigerians by allowing the tribunal to annul the result earlier announced. INEC and its staff should explain to Nigerians whether the BVAS was manipulated or compromised. The judgement of the tribunal has raised a fundamental question about the BVAS. The annulment of about 749 polling units result has great implication for the trust on BVAS in delivering credible elections in 2023. Nigerians want to know what happened to BVAS. The implication of the judgement is that Nigerians will still wait for an outside expert to analyze BVAS at election tribunals, court of appeal and Supreme Court before we know the result of elections. Even with BVAS, Nigerians cannot rely on INEC to conduct credible elections.
Justice Kume has explained that there was over voting in six polling units during the election and maintained that, after the deduction of valid votes cast from the over-voting at these polling units, Adegboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC) polled 314,941 while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Ademola Adeleke polled 290,266.
Bimodal Voters Accreditation System is a device that replaced the smart card reader, which was used in 2015, with the dual capacity for fingerprint and facial authentication. With its first outing during a by-election in Delta State on September 10, 2021, according to reports, some presiding officers complained that the machine had difficulties capturing the thumbs and faces of some of the voters, especially the aged.
The 2023 general elections are too important to allow them go the way of the 2019 elections. The loopholes in the 2019 polls must be blocked at all costs. Even though there are improvements in the electoral processes over the years, there are equally criminality in other unsuspecting arears often perpetrated in collaboration with some INEC staff. INEC is capable of giving us an appreciable election conduct if it wants and is equally capable of abusing its discretion at the same time. There was hardly any electoral fraud that has taken place successfully without the connivance of INEC. By this I am referring to some and not all of its staff who are just out to make money and compromise the elections.
Inwalomhe Donald, inwalomhe.donald@yahoo.com
