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From Okwe Obi, Abuja
Partner for Electoral Reform, has countered claims that the 2023 polls was the worst in the history of the country, noting that Independent National Electoral Commission INEC performed well.
The group’s Convener, Ezenwa Nwagwu who addressed newsmen recently in Abuja, said most commentaries after the election emanated from the position of propaganda, and in most cases, founded on ignorance of history.
According to him, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) was a game changer in the election, adding that most politicians who could not rig were not pleased with the reforms introduced by INEC.
Nwagwu said: “I am just saying that the country needs to be nuanced in the way it engages in elections. And it must engage elections from an informed point of view. So that partisan interests do not overshadow the commentary.”
He, however, admitted that there was violence, suppression of votes during the election, but said it would be unfair to use violence in a few polling units to judge the entire process that happened in 176, 000 polling units.
“It is important that Nigerians who are knowledgeable about the electoral process put this narrative out and make the world know that 2023 was not Armageddon. It was not a disaster.
“INEC performed creditably up to the point where that challenge came. Where that challenge came from, time will expose it.
“In most cases you could even be voting and the result of where you’re voting will be announced. In most cases the results were written in hotel rooms,” he said
“So the thrust of my conversation is that we cannot completely continue the narrative of saying everything was bad. We must also put out those things that worked significantly well in 2023. And one of the things we must protect going forward is the BVAS.
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“The BVAS has helped us to ensure that Rivers cannot bring 3 million votes that used to happen. In times past, Rivers, Lagos and Kano were the last results that used to come in every election in Nigeria.
“They wait until all other results are announced. But in 2023, Lagos results were among the first and it produced a very significant low number of votes.
“So what used to happen, when people talk about voter apathy is that, I told you that we came from a place where we write results in hotel rooms and tell people to go to court.
“But politicians in 2023 were afraid of the BVAS, they didn’t know what to do with it. And that accounted for the low numbers that you have seen.”
Explaining the controversy surrounding the transmission of results in real time on the iRev portal, he said: “Significantly is results transmission, because I need to put this out there, result transmission process is manual. It is not electronic. The INEC results transmission process is manual.
“Manual because once the results are collated and announced, it is entered manually into a form EC8a, and handed over to party agents and security.
“And if the media is interested, they can also get a copy before it is captured and uploaded into IReV.
“Now, the process of result transmission had worked effectively, the place that INEC incinerated itself was at the point of real time transmission but the real time transmission is an audit.
“Result transmission process has already been concluded in the polling unit. So this IReV that has become the issue is an auditor.
“If the result that has been produced from the polling unit and taken to the collation centre is not matching with what was brought, the returning officer can refer to IReV; if there’s a dispute. If there is no dispute, then it is not important to go to the IReV.”
