Taiwo Amodu
Chairman of the Indepedent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) Professor Mahmood Yakubu has raised the alarm over stealing of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System machines by party thugs in certain states in the country.
The INEC Chairman disclosed on Saturday while speaking with newsmen as part of his regular news update.
Yakubu mentioned Oshimili LGA of Delta State and Safana LGA of Katsina State where Polling Units were attacked by unidentified men with the BVAS as targets.
The BVAS is an electronic device designed to read Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and authenticate voters – using the voters’ fingerprints – to prove that they are eligible to vote at a particular polling unit.
Checks revealed that its usage entails either scanning the barcode/QR code on the PVC/Voter’s register or entering the last six digits of the Voter Identity Number or typing in the last name of the voter by the Assistant Presiding Officer (APO 1) to verify and authenticate the voter.
Professor Yakubu flanked by some of his National Commissioners at the briefing said while two machines were lost in Oshimili, three of the six stolen in Katsina have been recovered.
He said security challenge was a big encumbrance being encountered by his Commission.
He said:” But another contributing factor to the late opening of polling units is actually the perennial insecurity in the country. For instance, we could not deploy early enough to Alawa in Shiroro Local Government Area in Niger State.
Bandits launched an attack, not necessarily on INEC offices or facilities but in the area. With the advice of the security agencies, we tarried a while but I am happy to say that we are able to deploy to Alawa and voting in that location is ongoing as we speak.
“Similarly, in Oshimili LGA of Delta State, thugs attacked a polling unit and two BVAS machines were lost in the process. But again, determined that the election must continue, we were able to replace the stolen BVAS machine, and reinforce security agencies and voting contained in that polling unit.
“Similarly, in Safana LGA of Katsina State, thugs attacked one of our voting locations and snatched 6 BVAS machines. But again, we were able to recover and use the spare BVAS machines and reinforce security for voting to continue in that location. “Happily, security agencies have recovered the BVAS machines but the thugs still hold three. So in these locations, the target of attacks was actually the BVAS machines no longer our ballot papers or ballot box.”
Amidst the disaffection training, late arrival of his Commission staff to Polling Units, the INEC Chairman attributed it to a logistic challenge while assuring that no one would be disenfranchised.
‘One of the challenges identified is the inability of the Commission in a number of places to open the polling units at the appointed time of 8:30am. Some of the polling units opened late. But in line with our policy, any Nigerian who is on the queue will have the opportunity to vote no matter how long it takes until the last person on the queue before 2:30pm votes.
“Some of the reasons why we could not open some of the polling units on time include; perennial problems of logistics in spite of our best efforts. I think we have conquered the challenge of getting election materials to various locations. Though there may be complaints here and there, but generally speaking, we have delivered millions of ballot papers and result sheets that we are supposed to deliver for the election. “
