CIAN, INEC partner on general 2023 Elections

…hails deployment of new technology for voters accreditation

A civil society group, the Citizens Intervention and Accountability Network has said that it would collaborate with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to address the challenges of voter apathy,  in the urban and rural areas during elections.
This was stated when the executive members of the Citizens Intervention and Accountability Network paid a courtesy visit to the Chairman Independent National Electoral Commissioner, Professor Mahmud Yakubu.

The Director Planning and Projects Convener of the organizations, Samson Abraham commended the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for “consistently evolving measures to improve the quality and transparency of elections” in the country.

Samson described the deployment of technology in the nation’s electoral process as an imperative and welcome development and said they are ready to collaborate with INEC in the education of voters to end voter apathy.

 Also speaking, the Director of the civil society Northern region, Comrade Yunisa Mohammed said low turnout of voters has affected the elections in the past , he said the move will also address all the challenges and areas the Commission needs to improve to accommodate all eligible voters.

Mohammed spoke against the backdrop of INEC’s plan to deploy the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for voter accreditation to enable near real-time viewing of results.
He described the system as a multifunctional integrated device that could serve multiple purposes for different activities in the nation’s election value chain.

“The BVAS can serve as the INEC Voter Enrolment Device during voter registration and accreditation on election day, replacing the smart card reader.
“It will also serve as the INEC Results Viewing Device to be used for election results up-load on election day.
“This recent innovation is worthy of commendation, especially because it is designed to ensure full voter authentication on election day”.

Responding, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmud Yakubu said the Commission will partner CSOs in identifying the major reasons behind the loss of Interest amongst voters in Elections.

The Commission said the move became very important as the experience from past elections have shown a large number of Nigerians staying off voting on election days.