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… urges Nigerians to disregard rumors on BVAS
From Charity Nwakaudu, Abuja
A none governmental organization,Speak Out Africa Initiative ( SOAI), has appealed to the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC) to rebuild its integrity by addressing all the lapses that were identified in the just concluded presidential/ natíonal assembly elections before the March 18th gubernatorial.
The Executive Director Kenneth Eze made this plead at a press conference in Abuja yesterday.
Mr Eze commended the electoral body for the efforts so far but stressed that there are still some areas that needed to be worked on for the country to achieve a transparent, free and fair elections.
“We therefore call on INEC as the electoral umpire to rebuild its integrity & trust, close all the lapses identified in the last presidential/national assembly elections especially in areas like logistics, BVAS functionality, results upload from polling units direct to iRev portal for transparency & participation, voter education on
polling unit transfer as well as being seen as truly independent, transparent and on the side of the Nigerian people. We task INEC to do everything possible to eschew mistrust in the commission especially as the presidential candidates approach them for certified true copies of election results/material documents.
This is with a recourse to the Osun Gubernatorial scenario where two political parties presented to the court two different certified true copies with claim to have emanated from same INEC commission for lack of synchronization between the primary data (BVAS) and the backend server by the commission.
This is inimical to our democracy and cast aspersions on our electoral body as an institution and must not be allowed to happen again. INEC must show a good
cause to trust them by walking the talk this time. They must know that their allegiance remains to the citizens of Nigeria. Furthermore, they must not keep Nigerians in oblivion but must communicate clearly as events unfolds.
Speaking on speculations making around that Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) was not functional in the just concluded presidential/ national assembly elections,he said they were activities of democracy enemies in the country to discourage people from exercising their civic rights.
” we also call on the good people of Nigeria not to give in to misinformation being circulated portraying BVAS as dysfunctional, their vote not being counted or outcomes already pre-programmed. These are erroneous information championed by desperate politicians and enemy of our hard-earned democracy. We must quench it by trooping out en masses come March 18
gubernatorial/state assembly elections to cast our vote, the young people must proof it again & again to reinforce that the future belongs to them. Come March 18, Citizens should go out to Vote, protect their votes and ensure INEC/its ad hoc staff adhere to its own guidelines cum electoral act. March 18 is another date with destiny. Your Votes counted! Your Votes Still Counts & Your Votes will
count come March 18 gubernatorial/state assembly election,he said
