The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said it will complete the reconfiguration of the Bimodal Voter Registration Systems (BVAS) by Tuesday, March 14.
INEC National Commissioner Festus Okoye said this during Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.
Okoye said no political party will be allowed to look into the brain of the BVAS used for voter accreditation and electronic transmission of votes.
INEC officials used BVAS to check the details of voters at polling stations during Nigeria’s presidential and general elections on February 25, 2023.
Okoye disclosed that results from more than 170,000 polling units for the presidential and National Assembly elections have been uploaded on the Result Viewing Portal (IReV).
The Commission also said the reconfiguration of the BVAS would be completed by Tuesday in preparation for the March 18 governorship and state assembly elections.
The presidential election result where All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate Bola Tinubu was declared winner is being contested by the opposition – People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party. Supporters of these political parties said they are planning mass protests against the result.
Okoye noted that every Nigerian has the constitutional and legal right to protest. However, he said no political party will be allowed to look into the brain of the BVAS or the biometrics of voters.
He noted that INEC is the regulator of political parties and the commission will not abdicate its core responsibility to aggrieved political parties.
Okoye said the court judgment that voters could use their temporary voter cards to vote is not applicable to all Nigerians but to the individuals who went to court.
Okoye also blamed political parties for making polling units “inaccessible” for voters, leading to low turnout at the last polls.
