INEC seeks to erase BVAS evidence with purported reconfiguration
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Claim by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to want to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Registration System (BVAS) machines used for the presidential election is a cover to erase evidence of vote rigging and letigimise the fraudulent result, says the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
INEC claims it wants to reconfigure the BVAS machines to use them for the governorship and state Assembly vote on March 11, and insists the data on the machines is retained in the backend and will not be tempered with.
But PDP National Publicity Secretary Debo Ologunagba raised the alarm at a press conference in Abuja, per reporting by Vanguard.
“We have called you [the press] to alert Nigerians and the international community of the atrocious move by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to destroy and erase evidence of its intolerable rigging of the February 25 Presidential election,” he said.
“Late yesterday at 10:10p.m., INEC, in a desperate move to prevent our Party and Candidate from obtaining necessary evidence as Ordered by the Court, filed a motion requesting that it be allowed to reconfigure the BVAS machines and wipe out relevant information that our party and candidate require to prosecute our case at the Presidential Election Tribunal.
“This reprehensible action by INEC to frustrate the desire of Nigerians to get redress through the court is a clear recipe for crisis and a deliberate design by the Commission to derail our democracy and trigger anarchy in the country.”
Ologunagba alleged INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu superintended over the manipulation of the results and hurriedly announced a winner in spite of widespread outcry and complain over numerous evidence of malpractices and violation of several provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022 by INEC and its officials.
“The INEC Chairman bypassed all the steps and procedures provided by the Electoral Act 2022 for the declaration of results, including to announce and declare only results that were transmitted directly from the polling units to the INEC server/website and to review the results in the event of disputes and objections as to the correctness and consistency of the collated result.”
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Contravention of Electoral Act
Ologunagba added: “For emphasis Section 64 (6) of the Electoral Act clearly states that:
“‘(6) Where during collation of results, there is a dispute regarding a collated result or the result of an election from any polling unit, the collation officer or returning officer shall use the following to determine the correctness of the disputed result-
‘“(a) the original of the disputed collated result for each polling unit where the election is disputed;
‘“(b) the smart card reader or other technology device used for accreditation of voters in each polling unit where the election is disputed for the purpose of obtaining accreditation data directly from the smart card reader or technology device
‘“(c) data of accreditation recorded and transmitted directly from each polling unit where the election is disputed as prescribed under section 47 (2) of this Act
‘“(d) the votes and result of the election recorded and transmitted directly from each polling unit where the election is disputed, as prescribed under section 60 (4) of this Act.’
“Furthermore, Section 65 (1)(c) of the Electoral Act, 2022 states as follows;
‘“S. 65.-(1) The decision of the returning officer shall be final on any question arising from or relating to-…. (c) declaration of scores of candidates and the return of a candidate;
‘“Provided that the Commission shall have the power within seven days to review the declaration and return where the Commission determines that the said declaration and return was not made voluntarily or was made contrary to the provisions of the law, regulations and guidelines, and manual for the election.’
“Instead of being guided by the law, the INEC Chairman brazenly announced and declared results that were not transmitted directly from the polling units to INEC’s server/website while ignoring the objections and complaints raised during the collation in complete disregard to the provisions of the Electoral Act.”
Ologunagba said “despite this provocative act of the INEC Chairman,” the PDP as a law-abiding party approached the court and obtained an order directing the INEC to, among other things:
“Grant our party and candidate unrestrained access to carry out a forensic examination of the ballot papers, data forms, BVAS/and or card readers and all other necessary information, material and evidence to get redress for Nigerians at the Election Tribunal.”
Voter accreditation stored on BVAS machines
In his view, the court order jolted INEC into panic mode, which led it to rush to court to seek permission to reconfigure the BVAS devices to erase the information contained therein.
“In the obnoxious motion, INEC admitted that the ‘BVAS application stores the accreditation data for all voters accredited on the device for the presidential, senatorial districts and House of Representatives elections conducted on the February 25” and the reconfiguration of the BVAS devices ‘entails purging the accreditation data on the BVAS devices.’”
This action by the INEC “is vexatious, provocative and only points to the impunity and culpability of the Commission with regards to the reported manipulations and alteration of results to deny our party and its candidate their victory at the presidential election.”
Ologunagba reiterated this further validates the fact “our party and presidential candidate won the February 25 presidential election based on the actual votes cast at the polling units.”
He argued that if the INEC had nothing to hide, why is it in a hurry to declare manipulated results without recourse to the Electoral Act and without consideration of the disputes, objections, and complaints raised by parties during the collation process?
“Why is INEC panicky and desperate to erase the data in the BVAS if not that they contain evidence of malpractices and its culpability in the election?
“We believe that despite the shenanigans by INEC, justice will be served at the end of the day.”
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