Ahead of Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has warned that the no Personal Voter’s Card, PVC, no voting rule subsists.
Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who stated this while briefing journalists on the preparations for the 2023 general election in Abuja, on Thursday, said the procedure for voting as provided in the Electoral Act 2022, clearly makes the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, and the use of PVC mandatory.
Yakubu noted that the commission has in the last few months, made 13,676,907 PVCs available for collection for new voters and applicants for transfer and replacement of lost or damaged cards.
He lamented that while the rate of collection is higher than in previous years, there are still, unfortunately, many cards that were not collected.
On INEC’s readiness for the election, he said the commission has meticulously prepared and implemented its election project plan, adding that with a voter population of 93,469,008 INEC will be deploying to 176,606 polling units simultaneously.
The INEC chairman assured Nigerians that the commission remains fully committed to a free, fair and credible process, while reiterating that INEC’s allegiance is only to Nigerians and not to individuals or political parties.
“We have painstakingly procured, organised and delivered all the materials to the states for deployment. We commenced the delivery of non-sensitive materials over two months ago and they have been batched down to Registration Area/Ward and Pulling Unit levels.
“Sensitive materials have been delivered to the States and are presently being delivered to our Local Government Area offices. As such, these materials are only between one and two levels away from the Polling Units. We have achieved this by learning from our recent difficult experience with logistics.
“We have completed arrangements with the transport unions for the final leg of the movement of personnel and materials to the Polling Units. They have assured us of their readiness to provide all the vehicular needs of the Commission for the election,” he said.
According to him, the commission has completed all the testing of its technologies to be deployed for the election, particularly the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, and the INEC Results Viewing Portal, IReV.
Speaking on efforts to eliminate vote buying, he said the commission is convinced that its joint operations with security agencies before and on election day will vastly reduce the prospect of voter inducement, which is not only illegal but immoral.
He reiterated the ban on the use of mobile phones and photographic devices at the voting cubicles, as some voters have used these devices in previous elections to snap their marked ballot papers for vote transaction.
On the post-election adjudication, he said INEC has met with the judiciary, and assured of arrangements for timely post-election adjudication.
“We have also met severally with the security agencies, mainly under the auspices of the Inter-agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES). They have assured us of their preparedness to adequately secure the elections. This is very important as it will assure voters of their safety during the elections, which is cardinal to voter turnout.
On election observation, he said the commission has accredited 229 groups deploying 146,913 observers, stressing that this is the largest deployment of observers in the history of elections in Nigeria.
“Similarly, the Commission has so far accredited 457 national and international media organisations deploying 8,882 journalists. We encourage them to freely observe and report the election within the remits of our laws and international good practice,” he said.