Everything has been digitalised, votes will count on June 18 —Adeniran, Ekiti REC

Resident Electoral Commissioner in Ekiti State, Dr Tella Adeniran, in this interview with ‘YOMI AYELESO, speaks on preparation for the governorship election in the state coming up on June 18, collaboration with other stakeholders towards having credible and acceptable poll, among other issues.

 

The June 18 governorship election in Ekiti State is a few months away, how is the level of preparation for the poll?

As you can see when you were coming to this office, some persons were leaving here; that is part of the preparation for the election. Those that just left are stakeholders in election, comprising the security agencies. We have this meeting virtually every month and when election is fast-approaching, we have it intermittently, like every two weeks. The meeting is called Inter-agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES), where we have the commissioner of police, the director of the Department of State Security, the Immigration boss, prisons head and the military are always in the meeting. As a commission, we are doing everything possible to have a credible election, come June 18 and the people should support us. Our expectation is to open the polling station by 8:30am on the Election Day without delay and we are also working to ensure that our personnel on election duty send timely happenings in their areas to the election situation room without any hindrance.

 

In the last few years, INEC has introduced technology to enhance the effectiveness of our election, most especially the recent Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS). How will this system improve the forthcoming governorship election?

You will discover globally that everything has virtually turn technology and the era has come when we conduct elections with the aid of technology as being done in the advance countries. The BVAS you mentioned is meant to aid the election, especially for accreditation and the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR). The equipment is going to enhance and fortify the conduct of elections in the country. For instance, in the past, we normally had our accreditation by using our manual and analog way but this time around, there is no way you can vote without that card; and most importantly, you can’t use another person card to vote because the machine will show the face and fingerprint of the owner of the card.

 

Considering the technological innovations and the new Electoral Act 2022, will the Ekiti election results be transmitted electronically?

Let me tell you, even before the introduction of the technology, election results have been transmitted electronically because right at the collation centre, we  collate results from every unit and by the time we do the final coalition, people will have access to it and with the total figures. So, everything has been digitalised and I can tell you that the votes of the people will count.

 

How about the training of ad hoc staff, especially for the handling of the gadget on the Election Day in a bid to have effective and smooth process?

As regards the electoral personnel for the election, we discovered that in recent elections, it is only about two or three days to election that people will put their hands on the gadgets. Most of the people handling the gadget, even if you are computer literate , the device has been done in a way that if you are not trained, you might not be able to operate it. So, the competence in handling the BVAS is largely dependent on the rigorous training that one has undergone. We decided in Ekiti to design the training to take place for five weeks and we have concluded that already. I can tell you now that the ad hoc staff for the election can handle the device perfectly on Election Day and there won’t be issues.

 

Recently, the INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, said Ekiti has over 17,000 invalid registrants in the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise conducted in the state. What do you think is the cause looking at the figure and when will the people with successful registration get their PVCs?

You are aware before we started the CVR, there were rules and regulations that guided the process and it is not only with the commission alone. You will definitely agree with me that without the intervention of technology, if you register twice, it has a kind of insignificant effect on you. For instance, let me tell you, if I am a medical doctor and you are a patient who has been rightly informed that a particular drug should be taken in the morning, another in the afternoon and of course, the one for the night, if you are now taking the one you are supposed to take when going to bed in the morning, will that not have a side effect?  We have been giving the people of the state the rules and procedure that if you register twice, you will not have your card printed. Then, this thing has turned into online registration, where the thing could be easily detected immediately. For those who did not complete their registration, that turns out to be invalid as well and ultimately, they can’t vote in the June 18 poll that is the reason you had that figure of invalid registrants.

On second part of your question, we have started the distribution of PVCs of those who had successful registration in the local government areas. After this, for about five days, they will be taken to the 177 wards across the state but let me tell our people, you can’t collect the card on behalf of people. It can’t be done by proxy and when you are collecting it, your face will be captured.

 

As the election approaches, what will be your advice to the parties, candidates and other stakeholders in the state?

Our people must shun electoral violence and the voters with their PVCs, should be ready to come out en masse and exercise their franchise to determine their next governor of the state. I can assure the citizens that the commission will put in place everything to have credible poll.