INEC Asks For Suggestions Towards Enhancing Electoral Process, Transparency

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has solicited from Nigerians and development partners useful suggestions meant to improve management of electoral process and enhance its transparency.

INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, canvassed this while giving update of its programme and implementations to a delegation of European Union (EU) Election Observation Follow-up Mission who were at his office in Abuja.

According to him, “We will continue to be improve on elections in Nigeria and transparent in the management of the process. For this reason, we always welcome suggestions for improvement by Nigerians as well as friends of Nigeria. We appreciate the support of the EU to the electoral process and democratic governance in Nigeria.”

He stated that the biggest progress made by the Commission since 2019 was deepening the deployment of technology in elections, adding that the Commission has also made improvement in voter accreditation with the use of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).

The INEC Chairman further said that shortly after the signing of the Electoral Act 2022, the Commission released the Timetable and Schedule of Activities for the 2023 General Election which contains 14 activities out of which two have already been implemented.

The two activities already implemented include the publication of the Notice of Election and the availability of nomination forms on a dedicated portal for downloading by political parties.

“Clearly, the biggest progress made by the Commission since 2019 is in the area of deepening the deployment of technology in elections. INEC is the first electoral commission in West Africa, if not Africa as a whole, to upload Polling Unit level results to a portal in real-time on Election Day.

“In addition, there are other portals for ease of nomination of candidates and submission of list of Polling Agents by political parties and the accreditation of media, domestic and international observers.

“We have also made a huge progress in the area of voter accreditation through the deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS). We have carried out a number of pilots and in spite of the challenges encountered in some locations, we are convinced about its efficacy.

“In the six bye-elections conducted last weekend in 4 States of the Federation, the device performed optimally in both rural, sub-urban and urban areas where the elections were held. We will continue to carry out more pilot test of the BVAS and deploy the same device in the forthcoming Ekiti and Osun Governorship elections and ultimately the 2023 General Election.”