By Nnanke Harry Willie

The fear of INEC’s highly innovative Biomodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) is palpable and raising blood pressures to dangerous levels for politicians whose stock in trade has been to perennially rig elections and undermine the votes and destinies of the Nigerian people.

Seeing that their sinister, strategies are doomed, such career election riggers are aghast at the realization that the Independent National Electoral Commission under Prof. Mahmood Yakubu had developed and deployed the BVAS and complemented it with INEC Election Results Viewing Portal (IReV) which had been put to the test in the recent Anambra and Osun state elections and had been proven to be highly effective against manipulations and rigging.

They are alarmed that Yakubu’s INEC has stolen the thunder from their nefarious plans and created a disruption that would ensure that henceforth, the votes of every eligible Nigerian voter would be the only deciding factor for who gets elected into all political offices in the country.

The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) is an electronic device designed to read Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and authenticate voters – using the voters’ fingerprints – in order to prove that they are eligible to vote at a particular polling unit.

BVAS usage entails either scanning the barcode/QR code on the PVC/Voter’s register or entering the last six digits of the Voter Identity Number or typing in the last name of the voter by the Assistant Presiding Officer (APO 1) to verify and authenticate the voter.

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According to the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, “When the commission introduced BVAS last year, the compact device was intended to achieve two objectives. First is the verification of the genuineness of the PVCs and the fingerprint or facial authentication of voters during accreditation.

“Secondly, to replace the Z-pad for uploading the polling unit results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) in real-time on election day.”

BVAS also acts as the INEC Voter Enrolment Device (IVED) during voter registration. Its usage has also eliminated the use of incident forms during accreditation on an election day.

As with every new technology, the deployment of BVAS will come with some challenges but INEC’s national commissioner and chairman, information and voter education committee, Festus Okoye, has promised that the commission would “expand the base of the training of its ad-hoc staff to acquaint them more with the workings of BVAS and other technological innovations of the commission.” This is currently ongoing.

Though their push to halt the use of BVAS started immediately after the Osun gubernatorial elections, there has been much more desperate attempts in recent times to depose the INEC Chairman and possibly replace him with a more pliable personality who would do their treacherous bidding.

If anyone was in doubt about the push to remove Yakubu from office, the recent statement by the presidency that it had no plans to remove him should and assurance that President Buhari was firmly in support of the BVAS should provide some comfort. However, it equally gives cause for concern at the brazenness of the effrontery of the riggers cabal to destroy Yakubu and INEC for doing what is right and laudable for the country.

The Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) recently condemned the smear campaign by some faceless groups against the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) under Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.  According to the IPAC Chairman: “On the basis of our evaluation that INEC has been well on track, the leadership of IPAC additionally, wishes to use this occasion to condemn the emerging antics and smear campaign by certain shadowy and cowardly figures.

“Figures who clearly have embarked on the treacherous and unpatriotic conspiracy of reversing the outstanding landmarks that INEC has recorded in recent years in the annals of the nation’s electoral history,” Sani said.

According to the IPAC chairman, the real object of the spear campaign being directed at the person of the INEC chairman and the commission is merely a decoy. “The real target of the machinations is the circumvention of the deployment of the Biomodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).

One would have imagined that for a man who has superintended over these innovations and well well-executed elections, what he should be getting is a trophy, not a sack. But then it is not too surprising because clearly, some sore losers, in these elections are not happy that the rules of the game have changed for the better. Why are the riggers trying so hard to ensure that Yakubu gets out of the system?

One wonders why politicians cannot simply go ahead and fine-tune their strategies to be able to win hearts and votes. Why do they think that the best way to win power is to bribe, intimidate, rig and possibly kill? Why do they think that Nigeria belongs to them? Why do they think that Nigerians do not deserve good governance? Why do they think that change for the better for the generality of Nigerians is anathema to them?

It is really strange that these things are happening, but then Nigerians must ensure that we remain vigilant. That is we, the cheated and pulverized Nigerians. The people, whose fortunes have not just been tied down, but actually destroyed over the years. Nigerians, who have been short-changed for far too long. The people whose today, and immediate future, have been stolen by a few.

The people whose health has been imperiled because the politicians destroyed our own health system but are quick to sneak out of the country to enjoy premium services in health facilities elsewhere where other politicians have been able to ensure that the health services work.

Nigerians, we must do everything in our power to ensure that the present chairman of INEC remains in office and more importantly that the BVAS and IReV are deployed fully and totally in the 2023 elections.

Shame to election riggers and destiny thieves!