Irrespective of how elections exercise ends, preceding polls breed renewed drive of presupposition which depends on performance of electoral officers, who are entrusted to provide equal playing ground for political office hopefuls to occupy elected positions.
Countdown to the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Area Council elections have begun and with it, comes rose tinted Dr glasses. Once again, Councils are at the forefront of measuring continuous push for seamless electioneering outcome that is poking through thoughts of stakeholders.
Concerned partners in the electioneering process are hoping against hope on the nation’s electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, chaired by Professor Mahmood Yakubu, who without any contest, is the first chairman to be sworn for two terms in the history of the country.
Since his reappointment by President Muhammadu Buhari, Yakubu has introduced a number of electoral innovations like the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, designed to replace the Smart Card Reader for verification, and authentication of voters as part of improved voter accreditation process, the system performed two functions on election day. First is the accreditation of voters using both the fingerprint and facial authentication. Secondly, it snaps the polling unit level result sheets and uploads them in real-time to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal, Automatic Biometric Identification System, ABIS to sieve out multiple registrations including the Electoral Amendment Bill currently before the President .
However, with the failure of the BVAS in the just concluded Anambra State gubernatorial election as a major election after its launch in Isoko South State Constituency in Delta State September of 2020, stakeholders have called on the INEC boss to conduct a hassle free election outcome in the six area councils of Abaji, Abuja Municipal Area Council,AMAC, Bwari, Kwali,Gwagwalada and Kuje within the FCT.
Yakubu, during a meeting organised to set the stage for the polls, said “With regard to election technology for voter accreditation, the Commission has reviewed the performance of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in the recent Anambra State Governorship election. Lessons learnt from that election have been considered in planning for the Area Council elections. The BVAS have been configured and ready to deploy for the election. We have also made adequate arrangements for technical support and transportation to speedily respond in the unlikely event of glitches on election day.
Similarly, election results will be uploaded to the INEC Result Viewing portal (IReV) in real-time when voting ends and votes are counted at polling units on Election Day.”
Meanwhile, the National Executive Committee of the Inter-Party Advisory Council, IPAC, Engineer Yabagi Yusuf Sani during the First Quarterly Inter-Party Consultative meeting said,
“It is our fervent hope and prayers, that the new heights in the standards of performance. by INEC will not only be sustained but further perfected and improved upon for greater degrees of success in its conduct of future elections. We are in this regard, anticipating more superlative performance by INEC in the remaining off-season elections, beginning with the Council elections in the Federal Capital Territory and later on, the gubernatorial elections in Osun and Ekiti states.
“While commending INEC for its unprecedented outstanding performance in the Anambra state gubernatorial polls, we are not, however, unmindful of the manifestations of incidents of hitches experienced in that exercise. IPAC is, accordingly, calling on the INEC to take measures to rectify observed lapses in Anambra.
Among others, we noticed that there is the requirement for upgrading the level of the diligence and proficiency of both its permanent and ad hoc personnel on election duties, by way of training, refresher courses and re-orientation,”Sani said
FCT State Secretary, All Progressives Grand Alliance, Engineer High Chief Stanley Agwara, in an interview, said the INEC Chairman has improved how elections exercise is carried out and his reappointment “has proved his capacity, in the Anambra election using the BVAS in Anambra state. If he can maintain that there will be peace and everybody is both will count in the FCT Area Elections .
Also, the executive director, Youth Engagement, Democracy, human rights, Elections and Advocacy, Africa
Yiaga, Samuel Itodo, speaking recently at an enlarge stakeholders forum for the February 12th FCT Area Council Election,said that Nigerians expect three things to happen during the conduct of the elections that INEC with deploy materials and its personal early,polling units should open early and that we won’t have challenges with the BVAS, we saw the challenge in Anambra we hope that subsequently it is resolved that whatever challenges that fall within the purview of INEC, that INEC will address it.
The third and major is that INEC with provide security for voters ,that we have seen violence in conduct of elections ,that the election should not only be free and fair but peaceful.
The INEC Boss as in following up to date of the election has held several consultations with security agencies, partners ,party leaders and their representatives, he said in one of his stakeholders meetings that
“For transparency, the Commission is making hard copies of the detailed locations of these polling units to all stakeholders at this meeting. In addition, soft copies have also been uploaded to our website. By doing so, we want to achieve two objectives. First is to ensure that voters in the FCT and indeed all Nigerians are aware of these polling units and the arrangements made for them on Election Day.
Let the 2022 Area Council election be the beacon for a peaceful and credible 2023 General Election.”
