Cancel Results Where BVAS Were Bypassed, Mass Thump-printing Occurred –  CNPP Urges INEC

Conference Of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP) has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to immediately cancel election results in parts of the country where the newly introduced Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines were bypassed during accreditation.

The CNPP in a statement signed by its Secretary General, Chief Willy Ezugwu, recalled that “the BVAS is an electronic device designed to authenticate voters during accreditation based on the 2023 electoral guidelines.

“The legal framework for conducting the 2023 elections consists of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended; the Electoral Act, 2022; and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Election Regulations and Guidelines for the conduct of the elections.

“When the commission introduced the BVAS machines into the Nigerian electoral system, the compact device was intended to serve as the only means of verification of the genuineness of the PVCs through the fingerprint or facial authentication of voters during accreditation. All verifications outside the BVAS are invalid.

“On the other hand, uploading the polling unit results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) was intended to be in real-time on election day, which was substantially not the case.

“So, we are afraid that the election results from polling units to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) were suspiciously delayed because even results from different major cities across the country with good internet connections were not uploaded real-time to the INEC results portal.

“In the same vein, INEC officials were also being accused of paypassing the use of BVAS machines for accreditation in some parts of the country, expecially in the North East and North West, leading to allegations of massive thumb-printing and stuffing of ballot boxes.

“Another very noticeable anomaly is on viral videos where clearly under-aged voters in some states were seen thumb-printing ballot papers in parts of the North.

“The use of violence to scare voters as well as vote-buying persisted in parts of the country throughout the presidential and national assembly elections on Saturday.

“We, therefore, call on the electoral body to exercise its powers under the law to cancel results of polling units where violence, vote buying or mass Thumb-printing of ballot papers took place.

“Polling unit officials deployed by the Commission were accused of bypassing the BVAS machines, which is the only means of accreditation of voters. This is not in compliance with the electoral guidelines for the 2023 general elections as released by INEC and any election result from such polling unit must be canceled and rerun ordered.

“We also call on the international community to note these observations and pressure INEC to do the needful by ensuring compliance to its own guidelines.

“The current delay in announcing the results of the presidential election is even raising more suspicion that INEC has an ulterior motive or is acting a script to produce a particular candidate other than the one voted for by Nigerians”, the CNPP stated.