THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has reiterated that its newly-deployed technology, Bi-modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) has come to stay.
National chairman of the commission, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, gave the stance amidst fresh alarm by the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP), civil society organisations and ethnic youth leaders.
The coalition had, while addressing newsmen at a joint world press conference in Abuja on Wednesday, alleged that there had been pressure on the leadership of INEC to deactivate BVAS from the server.
Its spokesman, Ugo Ikenga Ugochinyere, said though INEC had been resisting the pressure, there is allegedly a new plot by one of the political parties, led by some governors, to commence plot to remove the national chairman and some top officials of the commission.
The coalition resolved to petition the United Kingdom High Commission and the United States Embassy and alert the foreign partners of the alleged conspiracy, which, it said, would threaten the Nigeria’s electoral process and regional stability.
He warned that any further action in trying to remove the INEC chairman, deactivate BVAS or any act to compromise the 2023 election will be an affront and challenge to Nigerian voters and the entire political parties which will be resisted.
Also speaking, chairman of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of Labour Party, Chief Peter Ameh, said it is the confidence that Nigerians have in the electoral system that has caused the renewed vigour in the recent past in young people coming out to register and participate in the electoral process.
“That hope in Nigeria must not be allowed to wane be- cause of the activities of a few individuals who are in power today,” he said.
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While presenting his keynote address, “Nigeria 2023: Ensuring credible, peaceful and inclusive elections,” at an event organised by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), at the NED Headquarters, Washington DC, Unites States, Professor Yakubu maintained that BVAS, which has helped the commission to promote transparency in the electoral process, has come to stay.
He said: “On the Bi-modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), what we have done basically is to retire our good old Smart Card Reader (SCR).
“The SCR by definition reads the card. Each biometric card has a chip embedded inside it and in the SCR, you have the sam card. So, there’s a handshake between the sam card and the SIM card which enables the SCR to extract the voter’s information from the Permanent Voter Card. But what we have done with the BVAS is to domicile the data of registered voters in a polling unit in the system.
“So yes, the BVAS also reads the card, but there are a variety of ways of reading the card. If you enter the Voter Identification Number (VIN) of the voter, his/her information pops up. But even if you confirm that the voter is registered and his name has been certified by the BVAS, he or she must go through biometric accreditation using the fingerprint and if this fails, the option of facials is used. And this is also guaranteed by law.
“So, what has the BVAS done? It has eliminated multiple accreditation that was observed in previous elections. Now, you are absolutely sure that the person who is accredited is actually the voter and the bearer of the card.
“It has increased public confidence in the outcome of elections as shown in the recent off cycle elections. People tend to be more confident now with the protection of the process of accreditation using technology.
“It has eliminated the use of the Incident Form. For those of you who have been following our elections for a long time, when the card reader was introduced, the machine would read the card, but it may not read the biometrics. So, when it fails to read the biometrics, they then say – give the voter the Incident Form. And though that, many people voted using identity theft. We have eliminated the Incident Form.
“So, every registered voter must go through the biometric and the facial and we jokingly say that the only way the two processes can fail, particularly the facial, is when the voter forgets his or her face at home on election.
“The system of using the BVAS for the conduct of elections has come to stay. There’s no going back.”
Professor Yakubu said about 95 million Nigerians would elect the next president that would succeed President Muhammadu Buhari, governors and others seeking elective offices in the 2023 election.
The INEC chairman, who recalled that 84 million registered voters participated in the 2019 general elections, further revealed that about 10 million voters had been added to the voters population after the recently suspended Continous Voters Registration.
He said: “The election is significant because the incumbent president is not eligible to run, this being his second and final term. There are 18 political parties in the race to produce the next president to be elected by 95 million voters. We had over 84 million registered voters in 2019. But with last Continuous Registration of Voters (CVR), we are going to add at least 10 million Nigerians and that will take the register of voters to 95 million.”
He revealed that over two million ineligible voters have been removed from its data through the adoption of the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS).
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