According to Omoyele Sowore, presidential candidate for the African Action Congress (AAC), the implementation of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in the general elections of 2023 won’t end Nigeria’s ongoing problem with election fraud.
He added that the free and fair elections scheduled for the following year are gravely in jeopardy due to the distinct security difficulties that each region of the country is currently experiencing.
This assertion was made by Sowore on Friday during an interview with the political show Politics Hub on Vanguard Online TV.
The AAC presidential candidate claimed during the conversation with Damilola Ogunsakin, the show’s host, that despite the use of BVAS, the Osun State governorship election in June was ruined by excessive voting.
No, I don’t anticipate a free and fair election, he replied. The people involved in organizing elections—not the machinery—are what ensure free and fair elections. In the case of 2023, it (the error) began with the appointment of federal commissioners who are officially members of the ruling party as INEC leadership at the federal level.
In fact, the President had once proposed Lauretta Onochie, his spokesman, for the board until there was some type of uproar, at which point she was withdrawn. However, the ruling party continues to send its representatives there, Sowore said.
He stated, “Secondly, it is to think about the security status of Nigeria and how many state actors are in possession of our lands. This poses a problem to free and fair elections. Boko Haram is still firmly in control of the North-East during this specific time period. The bandit-controlled North West has finally been included.
“Are you following me? The South-East struggles with their sense of self in light of their social movement. They have been at war with the Nigerian security forces because they no longer want to be in Nigeria.
“As a result, many individuals are unable to believe they will be secure on voting day. Take a look at what they’ve been doing to INEC in Imo state and elsewhere. They don’t even permit political campaigns to take place in certain states.
“If you travel to the South-South, you’ll notice that militancy has somewhat resurfaced due to the daily theft of several barrels of crude oil. Nationhood concerns are also present in the South West. There are agitators for the Yoruba nation who claim they do not want elections.
“So, if you look at it and the INEC’s partiality, you might start to ask whether they’re arranging an election in a different political system that they haven’t made public to us.
“However, for me, it’s INEC’s credibility. The tribunal proceedings demonstrate that there was overvoting, even in Osun State, where they were congratulating themselves on their performance. What are we talking about when we mention BVAS in Osun State but also overvoting there? So why do they discuss BVAS as if it were a single panacea to the issue of election rigging?
But according to the witnesses, the BVAS that we currently use does not match what they claimed it to be when they told us about it before the election. Additionally, they were uploading results while the election was taking place. What we know about uploading results is known as “garbage in, garbage out” in the computing industry.
