INEC pledges to redress issues with BVAS in future elections

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has pledged to undertake comprehensive analyses into the technical glitches experienced in the usage of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in the aftermath of the Anambra governorship elections.

This pledge was made on Wednesday by Festus Okoye, the INEC commissioner for information and voter education, on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme.

Okoye pointed out that the BVAS comprises “three consignments”, but INEC is experiencing challenges with one of the hauls which would be redressed by its ICT department and technical consultants.

READ ALSO: Fear of IPOB attack responsible for low voters’ turnout in Anambra polls —INEC

The INEC Commissioner said, “We will sit down with our ICT department, and also with some of our consultants to take a second look at the functionality of the BVAS and make a determination of what actually went wrong in relation to the 6th November election.

“We have brought in three different consignments and it seems to us as if the challenge is only with one of the consignments. I think it is possible it is a software challenge or an updating challenge.

“But we are going to go back and take a second look at the BVAS and remove whatever challenge occurred during that particular period.

“We don’t normally roll out any of our electronic solutions without doing a test run. When we did a test run of the BVAS during the Isoko south constituency election, we did not have any serious challenges.

“As we move into the 2023 general election, we are going to have so many bye-elections and so many off the season elections, and we assure Nigerians they the situation is going to be put under control.”

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