The Independent National Electoral Commission has debunked claims by the Social Democratic Party that the staff of the commission are reconfiguring the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System meant for the November 11 governorship election in the state.
This was contained in a post on the verified X account of the commission on Saturday.
The Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, confirmed the post.
“The attention of the commission has been drawn to a statement signed by I. D. Ijele, Director of New Media of the SDP Governorship campaign team in Kogi State. The statement alleged that three staff of INEC are now maliciously reconfiguring the BVAS machines in the Government House, Lokoja, to manipulate the forthcoming governorship election in a part of the state in favour of a candidate.
“The story is untrue. The three persons mentioned are not associated with the configuration of the BVAS machines and are not even in Kogi State at the moment. Mr. Nicholas Ocholi is on his duty post in our Ondo State office in Akure.
“Ibrahim Egbunu is attending to a very close family member hospitalized in Abuja. Mohammed Adara retired last year and is no longer a staff of the commission,” INEC said.
The post said that the configuration of BVAS is done simultaneously and exclusively in INEC offices in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states professionally and strictly handled by teams deployed from the national headquarters, Abuja.
It said, “The public is advised to disregard the story as fake news. At the same time, the Commission appeals to political parties to desist from engaging in malicious rumor-mongering of this nature.”