BVAS has the dual function of authenticating voters and uploading election results of polling units into INEC’s Result Viewing (IRV) portal.
By Ishaya Ibrahim
On the day of the Anambra election, November 6, 2021, Chukwuma Charles Soludo arrived at his polling unit in Isuofia Aguata local government area at about 11:30 am with voting stalled. The critical Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) was failing to accredit the more than 700 voters who had been there since 8:00 am. A frustrated Soludo pronounced the technology an ‘absolute failure’ after waiting till 2:00 pm without any sign that the situation was going to improve.
The waiting game continued until about 4:00 pm when technicians of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) came through with the challenge. A relieved Soludo later told journalists: “I always say that I am an incredible optimist and I always believe that somehow it (BVAS) will come through.”
INEC has consistently said that the deployment of BVAS was the way to go in checking election rigging which takes many forms in Nigeria – ballot box snatching, stuffing them with ballot papers, writing election results, causing chaos during voting or altogether disrupting collation of results. And that is not even the worst.
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Obo Effanga, INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, recounted to TheNiche, how in the 2019 election, thugs who failed to gain access into a ward collation centre in Rivers State, hauled dynamite into the venue. Everyone scampered for safety, leaving the thugs to have their way.
Effanga then suggested that electronic transmission of results was the only way to reduce the incidence of rigging and violence since it limits human contact with the tally of results. INEC, in the election afterwards, deployed BVAS, knowing that nothing is off limit for desperate politicians who employ rigging as the only route into public office.
The BVAS has the dual function of authenticating voters and uploading election results of polling units into INEC’s Result Viewing (IRV) portal.
Civil rights activist and public affairs analyst, Achike Chude, who monitored the Anambra election, said about the use of the BVAS in the poll: “Look, what this thing has done is that it puts the corrupt and dubious politicians in a very difficult situation. How will they manipulate the electoral process if the voting process is concluded through the transmission of votes? How will snatching ballot papers help them? The BVAS puts INEC in the driving seat. It also reduces the propensity for violence because if you can no longer deploy thugs to snatch ballot boxes, it means that to a very large extent, voters can be kept safe.”
But the hurdle to sanitize Nigeria’s electoral process by means of introducing technology into it is not coming easy.
For instance, ahead of the 2019 election, President Muhammadu had delayed assent to a bill that would empower INEC to electronically transmit election results. He said at the time that the new legislation could create confusion for the election since it was too close to the poll, which was three months away. “Any real or apparent change to the rules this close to the election may provide an opportunity for disruption and confusion in respect of which law governs the electoral process,” Buhari had said at the time.
Perhaps, Buhari was right. But two years after the 2019 election, there was no momentum on the side of the legislators to work on the electoral law until Nigerians harangued the lawmakers who then decided to meet them halfway.
When the Senate passed the amended electoral bill, it turns out to be controversial, creating more confusion in election management than improving it. It increased election spending, removed the independence in INEC to decide how and when to transmit election results and appointed itself and the Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) to make the determination.
As unpopular as the decision was, 50 members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Senate and two of their counterparts in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), voted to deprive INEC that power to make decisions on electronic transmission of results. Only 28 lawmakers of the opposition PDP wanted INEC to retain such exclusive right to make the call on elections and how results should be transmitted. Curiously, 29 lawmakers were absent during the crucial vote, including all the three senators representing Anambra State – Ifeanyi Ubah, Stella Oduah and Uche Ekwunife.
The amendment elicited outrage from Nigerians because INEC had severally assured that it could electronically transmit the results of elections. INEC National Commissioner in charge of information and voter education, Uche Okoye, had said: “We have uploaded results from very remote areas, even from areas where you have to use human carriers to access. So, we have made our own position very clear, that we have the capacity and we have the will to deepen the use of technology in the electoral process.”
What was the motive of lawmakers in the ruling party in kicking against INEC using technology to deepen democracy? Is it because they control the military and federal purse, hence, could come top in the game of rigging? Nigerians wondered.
President Buhari pretended to have risen to the occasion when at the time after the media, civil society organisations and ordinary citizens mounted stiff resistance against the passed bill, resent it to the lawmakers to accommodate the wishes and desires of Nigerians. A win for democracy one may think. But it turns out that the President has other plans. Somehow, the lawmakers reworked the law and added another clause that was not originally part of the bill – all political parties must adopt direct primary in choosing their flagbearers.
Buhari waited until the end of the expiration of the one-month window for presidential assent before announcing that the inclusion of direct primary as the only option of choosing party flagbearers was unacceptable. He then returned the bill again to the National Assembly to include ‘indirect primary’ as part of the options for choosing party flagbearers.
When the bill arrived at the National Assembly, senators promptly broaden the mode of choosing party flagbearers to include ‘indirect primary.’ But they decided to go beyond their brief by adding the ‘consensus.’ option too.
The addition of the ‘consensus primary’ may turn problematic because the version of the House of Reps strictly stuck to the ‘Direct and Indirect’ and no ‘consensus.’ If at the harmonization stage the lawmakers decide on any of the options, there is no guarantee that Buhari won’t veto it again. And if the bill is not signed before August this year, Buhari won’t sign it again because by the provisions of the African Union Charter, there shouldn’t be new legislation six months to an election.
The opposition against INEC’s attempt to reform the electoral process shows that politicians would rather prefer to be declared winners of an election without going through any real contest.
Achike Chude also argued: “We are in the 21st century and you want to apply 21st-century knowledge and 21st-century technology to address issues., so from that perspective, it is the right thing to use technology because that is the direction the world is going.”
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