Key highlights
- The Minister said the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) has improved electoral collation in Nigeria by preventing double voting.
- This has, therefore, considerably improved INEC’s performance, the Minister said.
- However, it has come with some challenges, including reducing the number of eligible voters.
The Nigerian Government said the introduction Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) has been a game changer in electoral process, even though it reduced the number of accredited voters to just over 24 million compared to 84 million according to INEC’s database.
This was disclosed by the Minister of information, Lai Mohamed, on Saturday in his home town, Oro, near Ilorin Kwara, where he spoke to newsmen after casting his vote.
He said that with BVAS, it is now impossible for anyone to vote twice due to biometrics and facial capturing.
The improvement: Mohammed stated that what he observed both in the February 25 and today’s elections, has been a remarkable improvement in the performance of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)
- “Without any doubt, the introduction of BVAS has been a game changer in the sense that with BVAS, you are able to get the actual number of people who are accredited.
- “Also with BVAS, it is now not possible for you to vote twice because your biometric and facial are captured . That explained why though INEC said there were 84 million voters in Nigeria, the last election showed that only about 24 million people cast their votes,’’ he said.
The challenges: He added the electoral law does not recognise electronic voting while the decision. He added that the federal high court in Abuja gave INEC the power to determine the manner it collates and transmits election results, citing he was happy that some of the aggrieved parties in the concluded elections had approached the court to ventilate their grievances.
The minister said the activities of some Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) had also been very unhelpful because many of them came out to unjustifiably discredit INEC and set one ethnicity and religion against the other, adding:
- “What we noticed is that some media houses had taken a position for one candidate and this makes rubbish of most of the analysis we see on their platforms.’’
