Determined to deliver credible polls in the weeks ahead, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has reiterated its trust in the functionalities of the Bimodal Verification Accreditation System(BVAS) towards engendering confidence in the outcome of the elections.

Attributing all that is being said about the BVAS to deliberate attempt at disinforming and misinforming the people, Chairman Information and Voter Education Committee of INEC Mr. Festus Okoye explained the A-Z of how the BVAS would function on election day. He said the Commission has resisted every attempt to divulge all that the BVAS has capacity to do because it would not want the conduct of the election compromised in any way.

The INEC National Commissioner spoke on the general preparedness for the polls by the Electoral Umpire spoke on Tuesday at a Webinar organised by the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC) and supported by the European Union on the the theme :The 2023 general election and the new Electoral Act.

Giving insights on the progress the Electoral Commission has made over the years to deploy technology into the country’s voting system, Mr Okoye stated that the BVAS is a great improvement over the earlier technology of Smartcard. He said at the time the smartcard was introduced, there was no support for its usage whether in the Electoral Act or in the constitution. This led to several litigations making the Supreme Court to commend the machine but described it as an orphan.

According to him, the card reader, which was the gadget deployed by the commission in the previous elections was not incorporated into the Electoral Act, and that was the reason for the supreme court to overrule it during the last elections conducted in the country. He added that the commission has now infused the deployment of technology like BVAS to accredit voters, display results and detect overvoting in any elections into the Electoral Act 2022. He noted that using the BVAS will help the country achieve free and fair elections across Nigeria.

The use of the Smartcard led to a deluge of litigations because the question that was posed to the supreme court was when you are calculating overvoting whether you should use the data from the smart card reader or whether the voters’ register should be the dominant document for checking over voting.

“And the supreme court said the smartcard is a wonderful innovation, is a very good means of authentication and verification but it is an orphan because it does not have a parent, so, because of that all the issues that were pushed about the electoral legal framework and also about the smart card reader were overcome by the supreme court and that was why the commission and civil society organisations insisted that the use of technology must be infused into the electoral legal framework and that is why we now have section 47 subsection 2 of the electoral Act 2022 which now mentions the smart card reader and another technological device”, he said.

Speaking on the voter’s accreditation and the voting process during the elections, the INEC National Commissioner explained that the Electoral Acts 2022 has established that all voters must be accredited and authenticated by the BVAS before they can cast their votes with the Permanent Voters Cards. He further explained that without meeting the laid down rules by the INEC, no citizens will be allowed to cast their votes at the polls..

Festus Okoye also added that the commission conducted a mock accreditation last week Saturday to test the software and hardware upgrade done on the Bimodal Accreditation system, noting that the exercise was successful across the country. He noted that INEC could only report 0.05 per cent of hitches with the BVAS accreditation, he added that it implied that the commission is ready to conduct the elections with the technology.

“This use of technology is now part of our electoral process. Secondly, every registered voter, who wants to vote during an election must come with a Permanent Voters’ Card. three, the person must go through the process of verification and authentication before they will be allowed to vote. The BVAS operates offline and does not need any network to operate.

“The fifth thing you know is that on the 4th of February, we carried what we called mock accreditation, before then, we tested all the BVAS supplied to the commission and just 0.05 per cent were found to have problems and they have already been replaced and in the because of our experiences we carried out both hardware and software upgrade on the BVAS and that was exactly what we used the mock exercise to test”, Mr Okoye stated.

He further indicated that the electoral commission would configure the BVAS to operate in a specific polling unit and registration area, noting that the machine will only bear the data of the registered voters in a particular location to cast their votes. He said that such configuration has made it practically difficult for cloning the machines, which some politicians have been making attempts to do.

On Whether PIN Number Could be Used for Accreditation

Addressing the speculation that individuals can produce their PVCS to vote during the elections, or that Nigerians can use their identification numbers to cast their votes during the elections, Barrister Okoye debunked such insinuation and tagged such information false.

According to him, it is only within the constitutional right of the INEC to produce and distribute voter cards to Nigerians to exercise their franchise rights. He added that the commission will not subscribe to such action, because it violates the law.

He further noted that Section 47 subsection 1 of the Electoral Act mandates everyone to cast their votes with voters’ cards provided by the electoral commission. He, therefore, noted that the electoral commission will not hesitate to prosecute anyone who engages in such activities.

Threats to 2023 Polls
“One of the threats to the conduct of the 2023 general elections revolves around misinformation and disinformation there are so many opportunists who want to confuse Nigerians and discredit the election and also de-market the Independent National Electoral Commission through misinformation and disinformation.

“Now it is the sole responsibility of the Independent National Electoral Commission to design the voters card, it is the sole responsibility of the Independent National Electoral Commission to print and it is also the sole responsibility to make the document of permanent voters cards.

“The most pernicious one that I heard, that has been posted is that people should just go to any business centre and go and print the Permanent Voters’ Cards and arrive at the polling units on the elections day with it.

“Any individual that attempts to do that or any individual pushes people to go and do that or any individuals that use a business centre to prints a permanent voter’s cards, the person is engaging in a serious electoral infraction, the commission will not hesitate to proceed against such person. So only those who have come to the polling unit with permanent Voters Cards will be allowed to vote.

Barrister Okoye also noted that the politicians who are buying the Permanent Voters Cards are doing so in futility. He stated that the BVAS will scrutinise all voters during the accreditation, and will not allow anyone without proper accreditation.