The Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission,INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu on Thursday assured
that the Bimodal Voter Registration System (BVAS) is highly secured, intact and cannot be compromised or hacked into by over zealous persons.
Yakubu gave the assurance in Abuja
during the annual national conference of National Association of Judiciary Correspondents, NAJUC, tagged 2023 Generation Elections: Judiciary and sustainability of Nigeria’s Democracy.
Fielding questions from participants after presenting a paper on “INEC and the Challenges of ICT- The way forward”, Yakubu insisted that technology will be deployed to actualize a credible, fair and hitch-free general elections.
“I assured you that our system is secured. We are seeing failed attempts by hackers.They are trying all over the World , just yesterday an attempt was made from France.” but our BVAS is secured and we would ensure that they are not able to beat the security, he added.
He said that, “As with every aspect of our national lives, adopting technologies into the electoral process is always met with challenges.
“One major challenge was the lack of a clear-cut legal framework supporting the deployment of technology by the Commission especially in the accreditation of voters and the voting process.
“The deployment of the Smart Card Readers in 2015 and its use was faced with vanous challenges such as resistance to use in some isolated instances, snatching and destruction of devices, attempts to manipulate the use of the devices, and most prominently vanous judicial pronouncements on the legality of its use” Yakubu said.
Represented by Dr Lawrence Bayode, Director ICT, the INEC Chairman said “Another very disturbing trend is the misinformation and disinformation on technological deployments by the Commission in the social media space and some media houses picking up news bulletins from social media platforms to discuss on their morning shows and political programmes without reaching out to the Commission for its stance on such issues.
“One of such is the recent viral assumptions that PVC is not required to vote on Election day.
“Let me reiterate the Commission’s stance that, Section 47(1) of the Electoral Act 2022 clearly states that,
A person intending to vote in an election shall present himself with his voter’s card to a Presiding officer for accreditation at the polling unit in the constituency in which his name is registered”.
Therefore, he insisted the Commission is legally bound to only accept accreditation of a voter on presentation of a valid voter’s card. “A person intending to vote in an election shall present himself with his voter’s card to a presiding officer for accreditation at the polling unit in the constituency in which his name is registered”
Emmanuel Owah, Assistant Research Fellow, National Judicial Institute, Abuja, presented a paper on “The Role of Civil Society Organizations in Election Management and Agenda Setting”.
Similarly, there was a Paper presentation on “The Role of the Media in Election Reportage” by Adebimpe Elizabeth Olorunfemi, Assistant Research Fellow, National Judicial Institute, Abuja.