Former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, has said there is a need to investigate why Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) failed during the last presidential election.
He made this known during his appearance on Arise TV’s Morning Show earlier today.
Defending the performance of the card reader in the 2015 general elections, Jega said it only failed in 5% of the polling units.
Speaker further, Jega also hailed BVAS as a remarkable improvement over the card reader and a game changer for the 2023 elections.
The former INEC Chairman, however, lamented that some pressmen and aggrieved politicians focused only on where the card reader failed, without acknowledging its success in 95% of the polling units.
Continuing, he questioned why uploading results to the IREV portal failed in some states during the presidential election while suggesting such a setback should be interrogated, not just by INEC but in a very transparent manner.
Jega said, “You said the card reader failed, but before I left INEC, we did an evaluation of the success and failure rate of the card reader, and the card reader only failed in 5% of total deployment in polling units, which is 95% success. But the pressmen and aggrieved politicians were just focusing on where it failed.
“And it can never be perfect. This is because 95% is an A in any kind of situation. And I can tell you that the BVAS that was developed to replace the card reader is also a significant value addition to the electoral process.
“What failure was experienced on an election day with regards to BVAS? The major failure, as I said earlier, relates to the uploading of information as promised by the INEC Chairman on the IREV.
“And I believe that we need to interrogate why uploading specifically with regards to the presidential election failed. This has to be done not just by INEC but in a very transparent manner.”