By Sunday Elijah
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu has faulted the report that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) failed during the Osun State governorship election.
“The BVAS never failed anywhere and as you have seen here, the machine actually never failed. I wouldn’t like to comment on a matter in court as it is 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 learnt some lessons from what happened and one of the lessons is to be able to transmit the accreditation data,” The Chairman stated on Saturday in Abuja while monitoring the BVAS mock accreditation exercise.
The Osun State Governorship Election Tribunal a few days ago sacked Ademola Adeleke as governor of the state on grounds of over-voting at over 700 polling units in the July 16, 2022 governorship election.
Yakubu speaking on the issue said the BVAS machine during the Osun State governorship election was not on trial.
He said the outcome of the judgement had provided opportunity for the commission to improve on its preparations.
“During this mock exercise, we have assembled result sheets that will transmit the accreditation data but there are no results sheets here because people have not voted. So on 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 2.30 pm, 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.”
