BVAS: How to shut up the naysayers
BY NICK DAZANG
ALMOST back to back and in quick succession, the coalition of United Political Parties, CUPP, has twice sounded the alarm about the electoral process. For the second time, it has clearly claimed that it will remove the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu. It has also been alleged that a rump of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, is busy working to thwart the deployment of the bimodal voter accreditation system, BVAS, in the 2023 general election.
While the CUPP has produced no evidence to support these lurid allegations, they are outrageous and serious enough to worry those involved in the electoral process. First of all, the CUPP cannot be a crying wolf where none exist. Second, Nigeria has an awkward pedigree in such matters. Desperate politicians grotesquely tampered with the 1993 election process, bringing the country to the brink of collapse.
Third, a former chairman of INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega, who oversaw the introduction of the Permanent Voter Card, PVC, and the Smart Card Reader, SCR, and which have vastly improved our elections, has stepped in and confirmed how fearful politicians can be Be technology that promotes and creates transparency in the election process.
Although Professor Jega did not elaborate on his intervention, students of the electoral process will attest that the introduction of the SCR in particular has met with some of the sharpest and most vehement opposition from politicians. Their arguments as INEC prepared to hold the 2015 general election were twofold: The SCR was alien to our climate, which meant that our rural population would be intimidated by it. Also, the SCR had to be fully charged to function optimally in an epileptic current country.
In response to these vocal arguments, the Commission conducted a pilot or trial run of the SCR. It has deliberately chosen rustic backwaters in each of the country’s six geopolitical zones. As it turned out, the arguments of the opponents of the SCR were defeated. Not only did the SCR work remarkably well, much to the chagrin of the naysayers, it was enthusiastically embraced by the majority of our rural population.
The immediate result was that those who opposed its introduction were silenced by its excellence and overwhelming acceptance. But when reassured by the tumultuous support the SCR received, they quickly staged an ambush in court. They argued that SCR technology was strange or illegal. And they triumphed, if only temporarily.
Learning from politicians’ shenanigans and the shortcomings of the SCR, the Commission introduced the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, to replace it. If the SCR read fingerprints correctly but was unable to accredit a voter, such voter was allowed to fill out an incident form. Politicians soon took advantage of this loophole, committing identity fraud and, in some cases, tricking voters into voting more than once.
The BVAS has ruled this out by ensuring that they verify and accredit the voter using the biometrics embedded within. Previously, the biometrics were captured in a chip embedded in the PVC, which is then revealed when it (the PVC) is pulled against the SCR. The electronic transmission of results serves to reinforce this transparency measure.
The EC 8 form, in which election results are entered at the Polling Unit, PU, is scanned and sent to a portal, the INEC Elections Result, IreV. Members of the public can access this portal simply by logging in. The beauty of this portal is that interest groups can track and evaluate election results even before they are officially announced by INEC.
In addition, it is impossible to manipulate the outcome of elections between the PU and the Collation Center. Finally, the Electoral Act 2022 strengthens these innovations and gives INEC carte blanche to use technology appropriately in conducting elections. Translation: All collection technologies now used by INEC are regulated and provided for by law.
Against the backdrop of this wealth of technology and their outstanding performance in conducting the recent off-season Ekiti and Osun gubernatorial elections and other bye-elections, quite a few desperate politicians, accustomed to the old ways of playing the process, must lose sleep or be in the arms.
Her insomnia must be further compounded by these important considerations: The President’s failure to leave behind a legacy of credible elections that he has inherited and benefited from. The fact that he has repeated that refrain several times and at August forums such as the United Nations, and the fact that he does not deny it, must make our political enforcers uneasy.
Furthermore, the close monitoring of the electoral process by interest groups, particularly the media, civil society and members of the international community, must have upset our political desperadoes. Far worse is the introduction of technologies that have made the electoral process more transparent and which in turn have given a boost and panache to our teeming youth who have heretofore been despondent and apathetic.
This increased transparency has brought renewed confidence in the process and its ability to change our political course for the better. This reawakening of youth allegedly cheering for a particular candidate has startled the old guard, who had assumed all along that the presidential election was a two-horse race.
Given the above reality, one should not be surprised if there is a dark cabal somewhere plotting desperate and bizarre 1993-style measures to torpedo the election process. The best way to dissuade them is to repeat the dry run that the Commission did with the SCR in 2014: the BVAS should be presented in full splendour, to the public, media and civil society in the six geopolitical zones and in our rural areas are tested.
The unencumbered and superior performance of the BVAS over the course of the proposed pilot project should shatter sensational speculation that it may not function optimally in all jurisdictions. And once it gains widespread acceptance from our country folk, such acceptance will require final endorsement of the BVAS by the Nigerian people. It also sends a clear and unmistakable message to the naysayers: shut up!
*Dazang, a public affairs analyst, wrote via: [email protected]