FCT Elections: BVAS Failed Electorate — Yiaga Africa

A coalition of election monitoring group under the aegis of Yiaga Africa on Saturday released its preliminary reports, identifying late commencement of polls, poor functionality of the BVAS machines, communication glitches among other operational deficiencies that has characterized the Council polls of the Federal Capital Territory.

The Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, at a press conference reeled out these challenges from its data centre which held at Transcorp Hilton.

He attributed the late opening of polling stations to poor logistics and security problems.

Itodo said polling officials encountered difficulty in locating assigned polling units, including late arrival of police officers at the registration area centres.

He said, “For instance, several polling units in Abuja Municipal Area Council especially Gwarimpa and Orozo ward opened late as polling officials couldn’t deploy without security protection, on average accreditation and voting commenced at 10am in most polling units observed.”

Speaking on the functionality of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, Yiaga said its observation showed that in some cases the BVAS failed to authenticate both the fingerprints and facial biometrics of voters in some polling units.

The organisation also identified voter disenfranchisement as a result of missing names on the voter register, despite some voters having Permanent Voter Cards.

Yiaga Africa said it also observed that the imbalance in the distribution of voters to new polling units affected the effective management of polling units with over 1000 registered voters.

According to Itodo, the development led to overcrowding in some polling units , while some other units had as many as 2500 registered voters, and a few having less than 5 voters within the same location.

He explained that the inconsistencies question the reliability and accuracy of the commission’s framework for the expansion of polling units.

“Inconsistent communication on election security: we saw with dismay the confusion created by the irregularity in the information from the security agencies on the restriction of movement.

“These inconsistent communication from security agencies undermines public confidence in the transparency and objectivity of security agencies during elections.

“Our preliminary recommendation is that given the late opening of polls and glitches with the BVAS machines, INEC should extend the voting time to 4:30 pm especially in pollings with a high turnout of voters.

“The operational deficiencies noted in this election provide a compelling need for a comprehensive audit of the voter register, BVAS technology, elections logistics and distribution of voters to polling units. Again INEC officials should act in the utmost sense of integrity, transparency and professionalism in the collation and declaration of election results,” Itodo said.