By Jude Opara, Abuja

Despite the failure to upload the results of the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections as earlier promised, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has assured that the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) would be used to used in the accreditation of voters and management of the results emanating from the election.

Chairman of INEC, Prof.

Yakubu further retreated that INEC has put modalities in place to ensure that the BVAS operated optimally, even as he stated that the meeting was important to take a critical assessment of the last election which has now become controversial following the inability of INEC to upload the results as contained in the Electoral Act 22 as amended.

“Arising from the Presidential and National Assembly elections held a week ago, and with the Governorship and State Assembly elections holding next week, it is imperative to review performance and assess preparations. 

“No doubt, last week’s national elections raised a number of issues that require immediate, medium, and long-term solutions. The planning for the election was painstakingly done. However, its implementation came with challenges, some of them unforeseen. The issues of logistics, election technology, behaviour of some election personnel at different levels, attitude of some party agents and supporters added to the extremely challenging environment in which elections are usually held in Nigeria”. 

The INEC boss equally revealed that the immediate concern of the Commission is how to remedy the issues that were already identified in the conduct of the elections. 

“A lot of lessons have been learnt. Of immediate concern to the Commission is how the identified challenges can be addressed as we approach the concluding phase of the General Election involving the largest number of constituencies i.e. 28 State Governorship elections and 993 State Houses of Assembly seats. 

“As we approach the Governorship and State Assembly elections, we must work harder to overcome the challenges experienced in the last election. Nothing else will be acceptable to Nigerians. All staff found to be negligent, whether they are regular or ad hoc officials, including Collation and Returning Officers, must not be involved in forthcoming elections. RECs must also immediately initiate disciplinary action where prima facie evidence of wrongdoing has been established. 

“Election Day logistics must be finalized days before the election and handled by the Electoral Officers (EOs) at Local Government level. This has been our standard practice. Centralizing the process as was done in some States resulted in delayed deployment of personnel and materials and late commencement of polls. RECs will be held responsible for any tardy arrangement or the failure to deploy electric power generators to collation centres or polling units where such facilities are needed. The Commission has enough facilities in all the States of the Federation. Failure to deploy them is simply inexcusable. 

“On Election Day technology, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) will once again be deployed for voter accreditation and result management. The deployment of BVAS has gone a long way to sanities voter accreditation as can be seen from the result of recent elections. Since last week, the Commission has intensified the review of the technology to ensure that glitches experienced, particularly with the upload of results are rectified. We are confident that going forward the system will run optimally”. 

Yakubu equally revealed that winners of last Saturday’s elections, have also been declared for 423 national legislative seats while supplementary elections will be held in 46 constituencies this Saturday. He added that Certificate of Return would be presented to the Senators-elect on Tuesday while the members of the House of Representatives will receive theirs on Wednesday.