The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman Professor Mahmood Yakubu has stated that Anambra poll will make history as the first governorship election in Nigeria in which the commission will deploy the Biometric Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) device.
The INEC boss added that this new device will replace the Smart Card Reader (SCR) used in previous elections since 2015.
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Yakubu stated this on Wednesday, November 3, 2021 at the stakeholders’ meeting in Awka, Anambra state.
He said the commission had through the media, sensitised electorate to the availability of the cards for collection, adding that many had already done so, while appealing to those yet to comply to do so.
Yakubu reminded “political parties, candidates and their supporters that vote-buying is illegal under our laws, just like the ban on the use of smart phone or other photographic devices in the voting cubicles is still in force.”
He said “the anti-graft agencies, who are members of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES), will deploy their personnel to arrest and prosecute violators.”
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“The BVAS has the dual capacity for fingerprint and facial authentication of voters. 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 genuine PVC will vote. No voter who has not been successfully accredited electronically using the BVAS will vote,” Yakubu said.
Yakubu also said that they have contacted the voters yet to collect their permanent voters card (PVC) by text messages and e-mail addresses informing them of the exact locations to collect their cards.