Even as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has expressed satisfaction with the performance of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) at the weekend’s mock accreditation exercise, the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to fix lapses observed in the mock accreditation before the general election.
Recall that INEC had carried out its mock accreditation exercise in 437 polling units across 24 states of the federation, where the BVAS was reported to have performed optimally well ahead of the 2023 general election,
The CDD Director, Idayat Hassan, made the cal who tasked INEC on the need to corrected the few reported lapses, in a statement on the heels of the mock accreditation conducted across the country on Saturday.
CDD through its Election Analysis Centre (EAC) deployed 111 field observers to monitor the mock accreditation exercise with three per each of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
CDD said its observation of the mock accreditation exercise documented a spate of low turnout of voters for the exercise and other issues.
“Based on field observers’ data on the exercise, CDD EAC found instances of late arrival of INEC officials to their respective polling units. In several cases, INEC poll officials had not arrived for commencement of the process by 11:30am, whereas they were supposed to have arrived between 8:00 and 8:30am.
“These instances of late arrival of poll officials were documented in polling units at Community Primary School, Enugu, Ngwo, where officials arrived at 11am. In Kungana Special Primary School, Suntai, Taraba State, and Polling Unit 002 at Damilu Primary School, Jimeta, observers data indicated that poll officials arrived at 11:30am, three and half hours behind the scheduled time. Late arrival of INEC officials was recorded in much of the 36 states and in 58% of the 111 polling units observed.
“Our observer data shows that the BVAS worked smoothly across the majority of polling units observed. At an average of between 30 seconds and two minutes, the BVAS accredited voters who showed up for the exercise.
“Although CDD EAC observer data recorded isolated instances where the BVAS experienced glitches while trying to capture the finger prints and facial features of elderly voters, the device eventually used either the fingerprint or facial mode to get the details of the senior citizens. Our observer data indicates that the BVAS recorded more biometric authentication through facial recognition than through fingerprint.
“In State Primary School, Otuokpoti Ward 2 located in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, observer data showed that out of the six voters accredited as at 11:40am, five were authenticated through facial recognition, while only one voter was accredited using fingerprint authentication,” CDD said.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, has expressed satisfaction with the performance of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) during the mock accreditation exercise held across the country on Saturday.
He expressed optimism over the performance of the accreditation technology after visiting some polling units in the two Area Councils of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja to monitor the functionalities of the BVAS machines ahead of the February 25 presidential and National Assembly election.
Reacting o the performance of the BVAS across the cross the country, where the exercise was conducted, the electoral umpire boss explained that INEC wants to use the ongoing mock accreditation to ensure that the machines are functioning optimally before the main election date.
Professor however Yakubu stated: “We are satisfied with the test carried out in our office, but we need to test them again on the field in order to give Nigerians confidence on what we are doing to ensure that the elections are going to be free, fair and credible.
“We identified 437 polling units nationwide to test run the BVAS machines. This is on the basis of two for Senatorial District and four for each Local Government Area while all in all per state is 16.
“We are happy to see voters been accredited and authenticated with the INEC BVAS machines working accurately.
“There is no problem of any kind in the two Area Councils we have visited. Again, the results we are getting from the exercise nationwide gave us joy and hope that everything is going on well.
“Our staff are on the ground to attend to any machine failure in case of unforeseen circumstances but thank God, we have not heard of any failure so far,” he noted with enthusiasm.
Speaking further, Yakubu assured that “as early as 2 o’clock, today (Saturday), all the accreditation data and the results will be on the INEC website for everyone to see.”