The Independent National Election Commission of Nigeria, INEC, stated that politicians who buy voter cards to use during elections are engaging in an “exercise in futility” like the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) avoids the possibility of such processes.
This was revealed by Festus Okoye, INEC National Commissioner for Electoral Education in an interview with Channels TV on Sunday night.
He also urged that people found in possession of PVC that do not belong to them be apprehended, since it is a crime defined in the Electoral Law.
On politicians who buy PVC Noting that it can only be used as a tool for voter suppression, citing that using it to vote is wasteful due to changes in how election results would be broadcast, he said:
- “There are 2 possibilities, the first is that you buy and make them not vote and participate in voter suppression AND if you buy someone’s PVC and the person doesn’t vote, what it means is that one vote is out, so you are suppressing the vote.
- “The second aspect, some politicians are optimistic and still think that there is a possibility that they can beat the BVAS used for voter registration.
- I think that exercise will be an exercise in futility, anyone buying a voter card is doing an exercise in futility, the only thing the person with PVC can do is make sure the owner doesn’t vote in the election.
- “But coming with someone else’s voter card and trying to vote on election day is almost impossible, the BVAS will not capture your fingerprint or your face.
In the event that a card fails in accreditationOkoye added that INEC will provide the use of BVAS in all voting units and also provides for redundancies, for each district we would have spare BVAS that can be deployed in any voting unit, he said:
- “In case of sustained failure, the Electoral Law requires that the vote in that area be undermined and the vote be repeated within 24 hours.
- “INEC has withdrawn the voting units from the palaces and near the houses of politicians and in places that are not conducive to electoral business, for political parties, the law allows them to nominate voting agents, each political party registered in Nigeria has the right to deploy polling officers, however Nigerians must be vigilant and on guard to protect their mandate
- “But in terms of politicians bypassing BVAS, it is impossible, because at the end of the vote, the result would be entered into the EC8A form, which is the result at the voting unit level and would be transmitted directly to INEC, accreditation data must also be transmitted electorally.
Okoye urged that anyone found in possession of PVC that does not belong to them be detained by law.
what you should know
Recall Nairametrics reported that INEC said that data from the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) will not be compromised, thus allaying fears about its security.
All gaps adjusted: According to the INEC, it has adjusted all the loose ends to ensure that the BVAS is safe:
- “BVAS is not committed. The data in the BVAS will be protected. After the survey, when the data is transmitted to our backend server, the data in transit will be protected. By the time the data reaches our backend server, the data will also be protected there.”
- “We have looked at the machine, and we look at a lot of things. As I said before, you cannot build such a system and not strengthen it. Like it or not, people will try very hard to beat this system. But the more they try, the more they run into a brick wall.