The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) was not in any way vitiated by the decision of the Osun state Governorship Election Petition Tribunal headed by Justice Terste Kume , the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has clarified.
The tribunal which was set up to look into matters that have to do with the governorship election held in the state on 16 July 2022 had on 27 January 2023, ordered the electoral umpire; the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to withdraw the Certificate of Return issued to Governor Ademola Adeleke and issue a fresh one to Alhaji Adegboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Justice Tertse Kume submitted that the Independent National Electoral Commission had failed to substantially comply with the constitution and the provisions of the Electoral Act and had erred in declaring Adeleke as winner of the guber election.
Apparently accepting that there were cases of over voting, the tribunal in a split decision of two to one declared Oyetola as winner of the election, noting that he had eventually gotten 314, 921 votes while Adeleke had 290, 266 votes.
Team@orientactualmags.com learned INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu while talking to reporters after monitoring the BVAS mock accreditation exercise in Abuja on Saturday, however clarified and asserted that the BVAS machine was not on trial as being insinuated in some quarters.
He however noted that the commission had learned some lessons from the decision made by the tribunal.
Yakubu said it will though be improper to comment on the matter that is still sub judice, the commission would however according to him use the lessons learned from the Osun Governorship Tribunal ruling to improve the process ahead of the general election.
‘The BVAS never fails anywhere and as you have seen here, the machine actually never fails. I wouldn’t like to comment on a matter that is still subjudice but in every situation, the commission learns and carries the experience from what has happened to improve the processes for the next election. We have learned some lessons from what happened and one of the lessons is to be able to transmit the accreditation data.
During this mock exercise, we have assembled result sheets that will transmit the accreditation data but there is no results sheet here because people have not voted. So on the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) Portal, we have created a new URL for those of you that are on the IReV portal. And if you go home after 2.30pm, you will see the result of the mock transmitted from the 437 polling units (PUs) nationwide, including the details of accreditation and we are going to transmit both the results on Election Day and the accreditation figures so that the two will rhyme’ Yakubu said.
He said the commission has given Nigerians assurance that on Election Day, both the accredited data and the actual vote cast will be transmitted simultaneously and accurately.
Yakubu described the mock accreditation exercise as seamless, saying the commission decided to do this to further test the integrity of the machines that would be deployed on Election Day.
The polling units visited by the INEC chairman include PU018, Post office, Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), Area 10, and PU03, Near Chief Palace, Bwari Council Area.
Yakubu also said there has been no report of failure of the machine from any location where the exercise was conducted- Team@orientactualmags.com
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