National Wire About Nigerians, Nigerian Business and Other Stories
By Gift Apiri, Yenagoa
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva has expressed mixed reactions on the use of the bimodal voting and accreditation system (BVAS) for the conduct of the 2023 general elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The Minister who was also Governor of Bayelsa state between 2007-2012 said it was worrisome that whilst he tried to cast his vote, the BVAS initially could not identify and authenticate his name in the voters register, describing it as unreliable.
Sylva who Spoke with Newsmen shortly after casting his vote on Saturday, at Ward 4, unit 4 of Okpoama, his country home in the Brass council area of the state noted thus: “When I came here to queue up to vote, when it got to my turn, they said my name could not be found in the register that was available to them.
“If one as highly placed as I’m couldn’t vote initially, then I can just imagine what would happen to the ordinary citizen who want to exercise his/her franchise.
“However, after some trial, the presiding officer(PO) came to me, saying that there’s a back up BVAS and that they’ve been able to find my name and that I could now vote, so as you can see, I’ve just cast my vote.”
He averred that the inability of the BVAS to identify him and others could lead to disenfranchisement of many electorates as many impatient voters may decide to leave the polling units.
This was even as he urged the Independent national electoral commission(INEC), to improve on the system in order to avoid a similar situation in the forthcoming gubernatorial and state Assembly elections.
