2023: INEC Speaks On What To Do Incase Hoodlums Snatch BVAS On Election Day

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has revealed steps to be taken on election day in case hoodlums hijack the Bimodal Voter Registration Systems (BVAS) machines.

The commission said in case of such unforeseen circumstances, INEC would deactivate the BVAS machines from the backend to deny access to whoever snatched the device, so in that case they won’t be able to manipulate votes.

Naija News reports that INEC Deputy Director of Information and Communications Technology, Lawrence Bayode gave the way out when he was featured on channels TV’s special election programme, The 2023 Verdict on Wednesday.

According to him, “If a BVAS is snatched, we have a system in place that can deactivate that particular BVAS.

“We deactivate it so that whoever snatches the device will not be able to do anything with the device because the device pushes the accreditation data automatically on its own even without the operator pushing a button. When it is idle, it pushes that accreditation data to the backend.”

His reaction was in response to how past elections in Nigeria have been characterised by ballot-box snatching in some polling units as hoodlums and gunmen overwhelm police officers and other security agents to disrupt the voting process.

The INEC official however expressed optimism in the capabilities of the security agencies, but in case the reverse is the case, where BVAS are being snatched, hoodlums won’t be able to achieve anything with it.

Bayode went ahead to explain that if for instance 50 persons were already accredited on a device, and the device is idle, waiting for more voters to come, it will push the 50 already accredited voters to the backend.

So before any hoodlums can take the device to other places where they think they can manipulate the data on the device, the polling unit officer would have reported the incident.

He submitted that “They (hoodlums) can’t take over the accreditation process because the device is designed to push the accredited voters to the backend.

“If such a thing happens, the PO reports and from the backend, that device is deactivated so that the person who took away that device will not be able to do anything with the device.”

Asked what if the polling unit officer is not able to report the hijack immediately, the INEC official said, “Even at that, the person who took the device won’t be able to do anything.”

Naija News gathered that speaking about the deadline for Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) collection, the INEC Director of Voter Education and Publicity, Victor Aluko said the window for the collection has been closed till after the 2023 general elections.

He said INEC won’t take uncollected PVCs to polling units on election day because that will be a distraction for the polling unit officers.

Aluko added that “Whoever genuinely registered and was not able to collect it (PVC), it pains us, but we are assuring them that if they miss this particular election, there are other elections, they will still be able to collect them and vote in the future.”

Shedding more light on the Result Viewing Portal (IReV), he said both the BVAS and the IReV were stipulated in the Electoral Act 2022 and it is a technological system that allows the accreditation of voters through biometrics capturing, and uploading of results amongst others.

The electoral body maintains that it has enough BVAS devices to conduct elections in the 176,846 polling units nationwide.

Hence politicians buying PVCs to manipulate the 2023 general elections are engaging in futile efforts because the BVAS will reject the biometric data of persons who are not original owners of the traded PVCs.