Malfucfunctioned Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BIVAS) device in Saturday’s presidential and narional assembly elections delayed commencement of accreditation and voting in many parts of Kwara state.
Our correspondent who monitored the excercise in Kwara central and south senatorial district, reported that due to late arrival of electoral officials the state governor, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, could not be accredited as at 10:20 am at time of filing this report ar his Adewole Idi-Igba, ward in the Ilorin West local government area of the state.
As at 10:15 am, neither INEC officials nor voting materials were seen at the seven wards of the Alanamu constituency, namely, Ubandawaki, Ajikobi, Oloje, Ogidi, Oju Ekun/Sarumi, and Adewole wards.
According to some of the enthusiastic electorate spoken with at some of these areas, they said that some party agents had gone to their collation centre located at Adeta Primary school, very close to the community to ascertain the reason for the delay.
Also in Kwara south senarorial district, malfuctiined BIVAS ans sliwed network delayed accreditation and commencement of voting in some polling units in Irepodun local government area of Kwara state despite early arrival of electoral officials and materials.
For instance at Ile- Bale polling unit (002 ) in Ajase- IPO ward 1, in Irepodun local government many prospective voters waited for more than 3 hours after the arrival of electoral officials due to malfunctioned BIVAS.
There are over 800 registered voters at the polling unit which is one of the biggest in terms of population in the ward.
Ninty years old trader , Mallam Saliu Yakubu was among the frustrated voters who waited patiently for more than 3 hours for electoral officials to fix the machine.
A polling official who would not mentioned her name told our correspondent that they eventually fixed the device by “simply removing the batteries and restating saying “It is now working fine.”
She ruled out possibilities of any extention of time but asured that all those on queue as at 2;30pm when the queued is expected to close will be allowed to vote.
Silimar situation was recorded at NEPA pillibg units Ajase ward 1 (006) where officials complianed of slow network thereby delaying accreditation and voting.
Meanwhile the Olupo of Ajase- Ipo Oba Ismail Bolaji Alebiosu has described the excercise as generally peaceful expressing satisfaction with the peaceful manners in which his subjects have conducted themselves.
90 year old trader, Mallam Yakub Saliu setting out to cast his vote at Ajase- Ipo ward 1 polling units ( 002) Ile Bale
