In a society where ghost voters have always been the norm rather than the exception, Nigerians were understandably glad when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) opted for technology as part of steps to tackle electoral fraud.
That innovation is the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) but even at that, it was still a case of wait and see for the largely sceptical Nigerian people.
It was first put into use in the off-season governorship elections in Anambra state in November 2021 with minimal success before INEC deployed the machines for the Ekiti and Osun states gubernatorial elections in 2022.
And with that, the election management body was bullish ahead of the 2023 elections that BVAS would be a game changer alongside the equally new INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).
But now that the elections are over, the jury is still out on whether BVAS changed anything or compounded the problem of elections in Nigeria.
In the aftermath of the presidential election of February 25, many people were quick to blame INEC’s inability to upload results on its IREV portal on what they called BVAS failure.
This category included the presidential candidate of Labour Party, Peter Obi, who famously described BVAS as a ‘complete failure’ during a post-election appearance on Channels TV.
There are however others like the Information Minister, Lai Mohammed, who shortly after voting on February 25 said: “Without any doubt, the introduction of BVAS has been a game-changer. In a sense, with BVAS we are able to get the exact number of people who are accredited and with BVAS it is not possible for you to vote twice because your biometrics and facial appearance are captured.
“That explains why even though, INEC says that about 84 million registered voters are in Nigeria, the last election showed that only about 24 million voters actually cast their votes. That is largely because of the effectiveness of BVAS”.
So, was BVAS, indeed, a game changer in the just concluded elections cycle or, like Peter Obi claimed, a complete failure.
Now let’s start with the Presidential and National Assembly elections. From an eyewitness perspective as someone who was on the field on the day, it was great to notice how anyone that does not have a voters card cannot vote.
With the BVAS, there was no chance of double voting because the device only accepts one accreditation per person per permanent voter card. And with every voter aware of the over-voting that threatened the mandate of Osun state governor Jackson Adeleke, it was quite interesting to see the eagerness of Nigerians to ensure that the number of voters does not exceed the accreditation figure at their polling units.
This effectively means that the era of ballot stuffing in Nigeria’s politics may be about to be permanently consigned to the dustbin of history.
And not surprising, when results of the National Assembly election began to trickle in, no fever than 20 governors and former governors lost their bids to go to the Senate which had in previous elections been a foregone conclusion.
It was unthinkable as recent as 2019 that such a large number of governors would lose elections in an area that is technically one third of the state they control. But that was what indeed happened this time!
And in spite of what INEC called glitches that caused more than 12 hours delay in the upload of result sheets from BVAS to IREV, it would be difficult to agree with Mr Obi that BVAS was a complete failure. The evidence was clear from the second set of election
Fast forward to March 18, the date of gubernatorial and state houses of assembly elections. From the outset, things were somewhat different, apparently as a result of the political upsets in the aftermath of the deployment of technology.
There was a case of missing BVAS machine in one state and in a handful of others, the same technology that worked three weeks ago suddenly became non-functional. In more extreme case, BVAS was not used for accreditation.
Incidentally, the same BVAS that the LP candidate was quick to dismiss as useless was the same his party supporters in Abia state relied on to checkmate an alleged attempt to smuggle in fake results from a contentious local government area during the collation of results of the just concluded gubernatorial election.
So, it is safe to say that without BVAS, Labour Party may not have won a single state, going by the testimony of supporters of the party in Abia state.
And to confirm that the device is really a game changer for the electoral process, the Appeal Court in its ruling on the 2022 Osun state gubernatorial election maintained that BVAS is the primary source of accreditation data.
So, without it, the 2023 elections clearly would not be anywhere close to credible and without preempting the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, I dare say the machine will most likely get the accolades it deserves.
Okubanjo writes from Lagos via dokubanjo@yahoo.co.uk