Observer groups under the auspices of the Coalition of United Accredited Election Observers, has called for the conduct of fresh elections in places where the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) failed during the last Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly elections in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
They noted that while the election process was peaceful and orderly in many parts of the FCT, it was marred by serious logistics issues and some avoidable irregularities, such as the malfunction of the BVAS machines, which failed to capture many willing voters while others could not vote because the polling units were moved, hence voters were disenfranchised.
Speaking during a press conference on Monday in Abuja, the group’s Head of Mqissions, Dr. Onwubuya Abraham, said: “We further observed certain late arrival of materials and late starting of voting in over 38 per cent of the Polling Units in FCT such as Wuse Zone 3 Ward Unity School, Apo Legislative Quarters Zone 4 Ward 018, which has 2,942 registered voters, with shortage of Adhoc Staff of INEC that complicated the process of the voting exercise
“Mixed Up of voter registers in over 32 per cent of polling units in FCT interchanging with various polling units, hence throwing voters into confusion.”
Abraham also alleged the omission of some voters’ names from the voter’s register and their original polling units, hence they could not be accredited.
He said this happened in about 18 per cent of the Polling Units in FCT.
He added, “We observe over-voting in numerous of the polling units in many wards in Kubwa Wards in Bwari Area Council
“We also observed that over 45 per cent of the polling units in FCT could not upload their result in the BVAS Machine after voting by the INEC Adhoc Staff, due to network challenges according to them, which may give room to manipulation of results.”
Abraham said the group also observed cases of misplacement of sensitive materials by INEC Adhoc Staff in the wrong polling units other than the original polling units, hence depriving voters of exercising their civic rights.
“We observe that INEC has a major challenge of result collation and management which may be addressed to enhance the credible process of election in Nigeria
“We, therefore, resolved that INEC review the ongoing coalition of result process, whereby conduct fresh elections where BVAS fails to function and polling units where over voting were recorded especially in Bwari Area Council and AMAC respectively, for the sake of the credibility of the process and to allow level playing ground for all candidates,” he stated.
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