Two civil society groups, the Justice Development and Peace Commission and the Community Life Project, have told INEC to fix BVAS machine challenges it faced in Saturday’s poll before the March 11 elections.
The groups states this when On Wednesday when they presented a preliminary report on Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections.
The groups, who were also observers during the elections presented the report at the JDPC centre, in Sabo Yaba, in Lagos, after a review of Saturday’s elections.
The executive director of JPDC, Raymond Aniwafe, said the group deployed 272 observers to the February 25 election.
According to them, there were some flaws in the exercise, and asked the Independent National Electoral Commission to modify its processes for an acceptable outcome of the March 11 governorship and House of Assembly polls across states.
Aniwafe said:
“Most of the flaws of the election were human-induced ones that could be prevented if the regulatory body recruited the right persons and trained them well for the project. The malfunction of the BVAS machine that failed to transmit election results when it most needed cast doubt on the honesty of INEC and its ad hoc staff that manned those devices at the polls.”
Aniwafe mentioned that before the election, the body monitored the distribution of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) from December 12, 2022, to February 5, 2023.
The director commended the turnout of voters at the polling booths, saying it was a huge improvement on the previous elections. He also commended civil society groups and the media for good voter education before the election.
On her side, Ngozi Iwere, the executive director of CLP, viewed Nigerians should not be stopped from exercising their civic duties.
She hence faulted some of the dispositions of security operatives at the election, saying that a proper security network of elections would give people confidence in the process while mentioning activities of thugs at polling units.
On that, she urged the people to stand up for their rights. Iwere also called on the police to protect the people.
