The Credibility Of The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System And Results Viewing Portal Can’t Be Questioned – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission has come out to blast Asiwaju Bola Tinubu for expressing doubts over the credibility of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System and Results Viewing Portal which will be deployed for the 2023 election.

The Chief Press Secretary to the Chairman of INEC, Mr Rotimi Oyekanmi recently had his say to the press, and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to him, at every quarterly meeting that the commission held with leaders of political parties since this BVAS was introduced, the credibility of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System and Results Viewing Portal has always been on the agenda and discussed.

He added that the BVAS has been trending on social media platforms and foreigners visiting Nigeria for the first time are stunned by the thinking behind it.

His words, “The Independent National Electoral Commission has been talking about the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, its features, strengths and advantages since 2020 when it was introduced to replace our beloved Smart Card Reader.”

“At every quarterly meeting that the commission held with leaders of political parties since this BVAS was introduced, and I am talking about more than five meetings, it has always been on the agenda and discussed. My presumption is that both the national chairman and secretary of all the political parties that attend our meetings also brief their presidential candidates about the issues discussed.”

“More importantly, we have conducted off-season governorship elections in Ekiti, Osun and Anambra states using the BVAS and all of these elections have generally been described and accepted as free, fair, credible, and inclusive by all and sundry. The governors elected have quietly been enjoying their respective tenures. Don’t forget that we also deployed it for the Federal Capital Territory area council election and it was a huge success.”

“The BVAS has been trending on social media platforms and even foreigners visiting Nigeria for the first are asking: ‘What is this BVAS thing?”

“Therefore, if at this moment in 2022, we still have a presidential candidate of one of the 18 registered political parties, saying he needs assurances on the BVAS or he doesn’t know or appreciate its relevance to the 2023 general election, then something is terribly wrong somewhere.”