The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, has expressed concern over the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System for the 2023 general elections.
Adamu expressed his reservation when a Commonwealth delegation paid a courtesy visit to the party secretariat in Abuja on Wednesday for the 2023 general election.
PUNCH He announced that the elections are only 93 days away.
INEC’s position was a consequence of the refusal of the High Court of the Federal Court in Abuja on July 31 to grant the prayer of four litigants who sued the commission over the suspension of the voter registration exercise.
However, on Wednesday, Adamu disclosed that he doubted whether the implementation of BVAS to broadcast elections in real time would deliver a fair result for the nation in the 2023 elections.
The former governor of Nasarawa said: “To transmit the results to all the countries, I am not sure the network covers it; I know parts of Abuja are also without grid, and we have from now until February when there is no electricity in large parts of the country.
“INEC must give us 100 percent assurance that they are ready when the results are to be transmitted because they talked about recharging the batteries. But in the last election we heard that it could not be recharged.”
Adamu’s fear was echoed by the party’s National Organization Secretary, Suleiman Argungu, who identified stable power supply as one of the obstacles to innovation.
Argungu also used his hometown, Kebbi, as an example of an area where the technology could have some problems.
In part, he said: “…For example, my state, Kebbi, which borders two countries. You cannot easily reach people on Nigeria, Glo, MTN and Airtel networks. If you want to reach them, you have to use numbers from other countries to reach them. So I don’t see how the transmission of the results will work in the elections.”
Addressing journalists after the meeting, the political delegation of the Commonwealth, Lindiwe Maleleka, explained their mission, that they were at the APC secretariat to carry out a “pre-election assessment”.
Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party has rebuked the APC national chairman over INEC’s ability to transmit the 2023 results in real time from the polling units to a central server.
Party spokesperson Debo Ologunagba said the ruling party was nervous knowing that the chances of exchanging polls with BVAS would be limited.
“APC knows they have no chance of winning elections in this country if the process is transparent. At a time when the whole world is praising INEC, the national chairman of the APC is expressing doubts. What does that tell you? The ruling party does not want the 2023 polls to be credible, free and fair. PDP is completely behind in using INEC BVAS and planned transmission of results in real time.
“BVAS was used in Ekiti and Osun states and the process was deemed credible. INEC has improved over the years. We enjoin all political parties to support the commission in its mandate to deliver credible elections to the country in 2023 and beyond,” he said.
