We have adequate voting machines, the INEC promises.The Bimodal Voters Accreditation System, or BVAS, for the governorship and house of assembly elections in Rivers State is thought to be missing 22 or so times.
This happened when more than 6865 of the state’s voting machines were successfully changed for Saturday’s elections.
Three of the accrediting machines, it was learned, were beyond repair and could not be utilized for the elections.
Johnson Alalibo, the state’s resident electoral commissioner, assured reporters and representatives of election observers for the elections that the development would not have an impact on the election.
Alalibo asserted that the commission had sufficient backup systems and added that the absence of any would not interfere with the process in any manner.
He claimed that the electoral umpire would make sure that crooks wouldn’t exploit those lost devices.
The REC of INEC further guaranteed that real-time election results would be uploaded following the voting procedure, guaranteeing a free and fair process.
Ebogidi said: “The REC told us that 22 of the BVAS machines are missing while “6865 BVAS machines have been reconfigured ahead of Saturday’s poll.
“Our concern is that results should be uploaded from the polling units early to avoid a repeat of what transferred in the last election.”
Obinna Ebogidi, the State Representative for YIAGA Africa, has urged INEC to make sure that their pledge of enough machines is kept.
