Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC declared that Politicians buying voter’s cards to use during elections are engaging in an “ exercise of futility” as the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS)prevents the possibility of such processes.
This was disclosed by Festus Okoye, INEC National Commissioner on Voter Education in an interview with Channels TV on Sunday evening.
He also urged that individuals found in possession of PVCs that do not belong to them would be apprehended as it is an offense under the Electoral Act.
On Politicians buying PVCs: He noted that it can only be used as a tool for voter suppression, citing that using it to vote is a waste due to changes in how election results would be transmitted, he said:
- “There are 2 possibilities, the first is for you to purchase and get them not to vote and engage in voter suppression And if you purchase someone’s PVC and the person does not vote, what that means is one vote is out, so you are suppressing the vote.
- “The second aspect, some politicians are optimistic, and still thinking that there is a possibility they can beat BVAS used for voter accreditation.
- I believe that exercise will be an exercise in futility, anyone purchasing a voter’s card is just engaging in an exercise in futility, the only thing the person can do with PVC makes sure the owner does not vote in elections.
- “But coming with someone else’s voters card and attempting to vote on election day is next to an impossibility, the BVAS will not capture your fingerprint and facials.
In case a card fails at accreditation, Okoye added that INEC will provide for use of BVAS in all polling units and also provided for redundancies, for each ward we would have spare BVAS that can be deployed in any polling unit, he said:
- “In case of sustained malfunction, the Electoral Act demands we should undermine the voting in that area and repeat the voting within a period of 24 hours.
- “INEC has removed polling units from palaces and near homes of politicians and in places not conducive for electoral business, for Political parties, the law allows them to nominate polling agents, every political party registered in Nigeria, has the right to deploy polling agents, however, Nigerians must be vigilant and guard unit to protect their mandate
- “But in terms of politicians bypassing BVAS, it’s impossible, because at the end of polling the result would be entered into form EC8A, which is polling unit level result and transmitted directly to INEC, also accreditation data must be transmitted electorally
Okoye urged that any individual found in possession of PVC that does not belong to them would be apprehended by the law.
What you should know: Recall Nairametrics reported INEC said data on the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) will not be compromised, thus allaying fears over its security.
All loopholes tightened: According to INEC it has tightened every loose end toward ensuring that the BVAS is safe:
- “BVAS is not compromised. The data on the BVAS will be secured. After the poll, when the data is transmitted to our backend server, the data in transit will be secured. By the time the data gets to our backend server, the data will also be secured there.”
- “We have looked at the machine, and we looked at a lot of things. As I said earlier, you cannot build such a system and not fortify it. Whether we like it or not, people will try a lot to beat this system. But the more they try, the more they meet a brick wall.
