Election2023: BIVAS Continues To Fail

The newly introduced BIVAS machine by the Independent National Electoral Commission occurred to have failed in some parts of Nigeria as they head out on Saturday to cast their votes for Presidency and National Assembly seats.

Reports held that the former majority leader at the Kwara State House of Assembly, Hon Wole Oke was on Saturday morning stopped from voting on account of a glitch in the Bimodal Voters’ Accreditation System at his polling unit in Shao, Kwara North.

Oke, who is also an All Progressives Congress, APC, chieftain Oke however stated he would return to the polling unit to exercise his voting right.
The chieftain was voting at Unit 014 one of 16 polling units in Shao, which increased from its previous 7 by INEC.

Also, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State had angrily left his Polling Unit 8, Ward nine, Rumueprikon, Obio-Akpor after he could not be validated by the Bio-modal Voter Accreditation System (BIVAS).

The Rivers State Governor had waited for 25 minutes before leaving his polling unit, according to reports.
The Governor, who left the unit, expressed disappointment in the electoral umpire.

He said:

“We are highly disappointed. INEC told us they were ready for the election and that BIVAS are working. You can see the crowd here I don’t think that most people will be allowed to vote with slow working of the BIVAS.

“I have stayed about 25 minutes here and I was told to go and come back that they will rectify the BIVAS. We are highly disappointed. If a number of people are disenfranchised, what do you expect?

“People will lose their temper and anything could happen. INEC ought to have been completely ready before telling the people they are ready. There is no violence anywhere in the state.”

A similar report showed that most of the BVAS machines have not booted because of network problems at Lamisula/Zabarmari Collation Centre, Maiduguri metropolis, by 9 am.

Tijjani Hassan in charge of the centre said the machines would not be distributed until technicians rectified the problem.

Eighty polling units of the ward were yet to collect materials from the centre for the elections at the time.

Meanwhile, the INEC official stated that the problem with BIVAS was a general problem.
The official added that they were waiting for technicians assigned to the unit to rectify the problem.