Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu says Anambra state, on Saturday 6th of November would make history as the first Governorship election in Nigeria in which the Commission will deploy the Biometric Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) device.
The INEC chairman disclosed this in his remark at the stakeholders’ meeting on the Anambra state governorship election, held at the Professor Dora Akunyili Women Development Centre, Awka, on Wednesday 3rd November 2021
Prof. Yakubu explained that the new device replaces the Smart Card Reader (SCR) used in previous elections since 2015.
“We are satisfied with the pilot deployment of the BVAS in the Isoko South I State Constituency Bye-election in Delta State on 11th September 2021. The BVAS has the dual capacity for fingerprint and facial authentication of voters.
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“This is to guard against voting by identity theft where one person uses another person’s Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) to vote using the incident form. With this development, the use of the incident form is abolished. No voter without a genuine PVC will vote. No voter who has not been successfully accredited electronically using the BVAS will vote.
He stated that the new device has the capacity to snap Polling Unit level results and upload them to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal so that citizens could view results as election is concluded in each Polling Unit.
The INEC chairman also stated that the commission was also aware of the concern expressed about the availability of PVCs for new registrants in Anambra State.
“At the end of the recent Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise, a total of 138,802 citizens completed the registration. After cleaning up the data, the Commission identified and archived 62,698 multiple registrants. Consequently, the number of valid registrants is 76,104.
“This figure has been added to 5,674 requests for transfer, update of voter information and replacement of lost or damaged PVCs, bringing the total of valid registrations to 81,774. I am glad to report that the PVCs have been printed and delivered to all the Local Government Areas for collection by voters.
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“We have also contacted the voters by text messages and e-mail addresses and informed them of the exact locations to collect their cards. Through the media, we have also been sensitizing them to the availability of the cards for collection. Many of them have done so already. Let me therefore once again appeal to those that have not done so that their cards are available for collection.”
He also added that the commission has published the register of voters for the election on 7th October 2021 i.e. 30 days to the election as required by law.
“The Anambra Governorship election is the first time that voting is taking place in polling units since the recent successful conversion of voting points arising from the expansion of voter access to polling units in Nigeria,” he added.