Tinubu Discredits INEC At Chatham House, Says Commission ‘Yet To Assure Us BVAS Is Reliable’

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, has expressed lack of confidence in the method being deployed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the 2023 general election.

Tinubu during his presentation at the Chatham House, London, on Monday, said INEC has yet to assure him that the technology it is deploying for the polls is “reliable, dependable and assuring”.

To reduce rigging or manipulation in Nigeria’s elections, INEC had advanced its use of technology by introducing technological devices such as the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IRev) for accreditation of voters and transmission of election results, respectively.

The technological innovations which were used for the conduct of the last Ekiti and Osun governorship elections would be deployed for the first time for the general election in 2023.

But speaking at the Chatham House on Monday, Tinubu expressed lack of confidence in the new process.

The APC candidate spoke while responding to a question on if his administration will push for diaspora voting if elected president in 2023.

“I think it was El-Rufai last night that mentioned that diaspora voters are entitled to voting

“If you make contributions to the economy with remittances that you have been making, your right to vote should not be abrogated but promoted. However, we are still building confidence in our democratic and voting system.

“INEC is still yet to assure us during this election that electronic transmission, the technology being used for accreditation and, you know, the total vote count is reliable, dependable and assuring in our democratic process — before we introduced a complicated element of mail-in ballots and all that,” he said.

The national chairman of Tinubu’s party, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, had earlier raised concerns over the proposed use of the BVAS and electronic transmission in the 2023 election.

Adamu told a delegation of the Commonwealth on the 2023 general election during a courtesy visit to him that he doubted if the introduction of the BVAS and IReV can guarantee fairness at the polls.

“First, I was privileged to serve as a senator. But our concern is how ready are we to deploy some of these technologies as regards transmission because we are taking a major step in transmitting election results in real-time.

“To transmit results, every part of the nation – Nigeria, I’m not sure that the network covers it, I know that even in parts of Abuja, there is no network and we have from now till February when in substantial parts of the country, there is no electricity.

“INEC must assure us 100 per cent that as of when due in transmitting results, they are ready because they spoke about recharging batteries. But we heard in previous elections when it says it can’t recharge.”

The ruling party also expressed concern that the lack of stable power supply across the country could pose a challenge to the innovation.

But at a recent capacity building held for journalists in Abuja, INEC addressed the concerns.

The commission’s Deputy Director of ICT, Lawrence Bayode, explained that the BVAS does not require internet network to pull out voters’ information and accredit them for voting.

Bayode also revealed that apart from having batteries that can last 12 hours, power banks would be assigned to each BVAS machine during the polls.