By Matthew Tabe
Less than three months to the 2023 general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that it have procured enough Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) to service the 176,846 polling units in the country.
This was disclosed by INEC Spokesman, Festus Okoye while speaking on the readiness of the election umpire towards achieving a successful outing next year.
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Mr. Okoye who is the National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee said “The commission is meticulously following its own timelines and we have procured enough BVAS to service the 176,846 polling units in the country and there will be sufficient redundancies for the 8,809 registration areas. We have also procured additional ones for purposes of training of our Registration Area Technical Support Staff.”
QUEST TIMES had earlier reported that some politicians have started mapping out plans to rig the outcome of the polls by bypassing BVAS.
INEC had, in November, explained that the non-delivery and non-receipt of the BVAS by the two zones had nothing to do with insecurity.
Okoye stressed that the commission has planned and will continue to plan all the activities relating to the conduct of the 2023 general election. The procurement of sensitive and non-sensitive materials, their delivery and deployment have been carefully designed and planned by the commission.
“The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System was designed in-house by the commission’s engineers and is being fabricated outside the country. The manufacturers have kept faith with the timelines and schedules of production and delivery as handed over to them by the commission. The commission has started receiving the deliveries from the designated airports and for designated states; and these have equally been delivered to some of the states of the federation.
“Presently, the consignments meant for the North-East and South-East have not been received by the commission and could not have been delivered to the states.
He added, “The manufacturers are following the timeliness and schedules given by the Commission. The non-delivery and non-receipt of the BVAS by the states in the Northeast and Southeast has absolutely nothing to do with insecurity and the activities of gunmen or bandits.
“The commission is following its timelines and all the consignments meant for all the states of the federation will be delivered in 2022. The commission will carry out mock accreditation in all the states of the federation and this will take place simultaneously in all the states of the federation.
INEC finally began the distribution of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System facilities to the remaining parts of the country, including the North-East and South-East states, which hitherto had yet to get the vital election equipment.
It was learnt on Wednesday that the agency had resumed the airlift of BVAS to states amid security concerns over the safety of the electoral equipment.
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On the social media handles of INEC, it was reported that the Chairman of INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, supervised the airlift at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, on Wednesday.
INEC had confirmed exclusively to The PUNCH in early November that the North-East and South-East zones were yet to receive BVAS.
The North-East states affected include Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, and Yobe; while the states in the South-East are Imo, Anambra, Abia, Enugu and Ebonyi.