CSO: Poor handling of BVAS by INEC officials caused problems in Osun guber

The Abuja School of Social and Political Thoughts, a civil society organisation (CSO), says the poor handling of the bimodal voter registration system (BVAS) by ad hoc officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) caused problems in the Osun governorship election.

Ademola Adeleke, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was declared winner of the governorship poll held on July 16.

But Gboyega Oyetola, former Osun governor, and the All Progressives Congress (APC) claimed that there was overvoting in 749 polling units across 10 LGAs of the state.

Their argument was upheld by the election petition tribunal and Oyetola was consequently declared the winner of the election.

Adeleke has since rejected the verdict and is appealing it.

Addressing a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, Sam Amadi, the CSO’s director, said there was no overvoting in the election in the “typical sense”.

Amadi said the technology requires good personnel management to ensure the success of BVAS.

“The real failure in the Osun election was not BVAS. It was the personnel that managed the BVAS. As a matter of fact there was no overvoting in Osun in the typical sense. What happened in Osun with a very costly oversight of presiding officers, supervisory presiding officers and INEC officers,” he said.

“There was a practical failure in the implementation of Section 60 (4) and (5) of the Electoral Act. The relevant officers ought to be vigilant and ensure that the BVAS accreditation results were fully loaded before ending the process.

“Even when the losers in the election demanded for the report of the BVAS relevant INEC officials should have ensured that the full report was sent or if there was extreme urgency they would have accompanied with a letter to indicate its interim nature.

“All these failures reinforce the critical importance of the technical and ethical competencies of persons who supervise elections in 2023.

“We have moved to the stage where it matters the quality and character of those who manage technology on election day.”

The CSO’s director said INEC should be careful in selecting ad hoc staff in the forthcoming elections.

“In requesting for staff of sister agencies, INEC should not take any list from such agencies except the nominal list backed up by recent salary slips to verify that those persons are real staff of the agencies,” he said.