Anambra Governorship Fallout: APC Displeased With INEC, Kicks Against BVAS For Presidential Election

The ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, is making moves to stop the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, from deploying BVAS, for the Presidential Election in 2023.

The party is angry that many voters who would have voted for it during the just concluded Anambra Governorship Election were denied the chance of doing so even in areas it had superior voters.

During the voting exercise, voters and observers complained of malfunctioning INEC equipment, thus delaying voting process while many others could not get accredited and did not vote.

BVAS is a Bimodal Voter Accreditation System device, used to capture fingerprints and facials of registered voters.

It was first tested in a state assembly election in Delta State.

INEC also uses it to upload the polling units result to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) thus enhancing the speed of election.

But APC stalwarts who feel they lost the Anambra election due to the number of people prevented from voting are Displeased with the process.

A member of the caretaker committee who spoke to THE WHISTLER on Thursday morning said, “It’s not absolute that the BVAS must be used in all the elections INEC will conduct.”

The high ranking member of the APC National Working Committee from Anambra argued that, “It’s not in the electoral act for INEC to deploy those machines, which by the way, malfunctioned and stalled the process. While we commend INEC for looking for ways to enhance the speed of voting, we must also not lose sight of the right of the people to vote.

“People must vote and be allowed to vote, it’s their right as enshrined in the constitution otherwise they will come and institute cases in court for being denied that chance. It’s possible, they can go to court,” he said.

Asked if that will not amount to reinventing the wheel, he said, “If other possible solutions would enhance the speed of elections in Nigeria without BVAS, we can do that. It must not be BVAS.

“We can’t be creating problems while trying to solve another. Civilised people don’t do that.”

He further said the Anambra governorship election experience has unsettled the APC, with members discussing it.

According to him, it would form part of the discussion during a formal meeting of the party executives that will enable them fashion out ways to limit or curtail deployment of BVAS.

He said while the APC has embraced the electronic transmission of result, BVAS is an area they will seek limitations to its application.

“We are okay with electronic transmission of results if the President signs it into law but BVAS, no, except INEC would guarantee that no Nigerian with voter card will be denied the opportunity to vote especially during the Presidential election,” he said.