The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) failed in the real-time transmission of results in Saturday’s Area Councils election in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The development caused doubts and chaos at some polling units, forcing the polling officers, comprising NYSC members, INEC ad hoc staff and security officers, to hurriedly conclude their voting processes and head to the collation centre.

Specifically, the polling unit officials said it might be that the configuration that would allow the device to carry out real-time transmission of the election results was not completed before election day.

Polling unit officers at PU012 and 013 located at Karu CBN junction, told election observers and journalists that they were asked to bring the device to the collation centre for the upload to be done there, an indication that such a task could only be handled by more senior INEC officials at the collation centre.

However, when the party agents and observers insisted on the real-time electronic transmission of the election results to secure its credibility, the polling unit officials appealed and suggested that the party agents accompany them to the collation centre so the result could be uploaded on the IReV in their presence.

One of the polling officials said, “You could see that we have repeatedly tried uploading the result on the IReV portal, but it keeps returning unsuccessfully. We have also contacted the manual book given to us by INEC, but we still couldn’t successfully upload the results.

“In fact, the manual asked that we use the Chrome app in the BVAS, but it’s obvious that the BVAS has no Chrome app. It means the device was not properly configured. In fact, this BVAS was given to us a few minutes before we left the INEC office this morning.

“Nevertheless, we would take it to the collation centre so that our supervisors could do the upload and possibly teach us ahead of the 2027 elections. Unfortunately, we are not the only ones affected. A few other polling units in this Karu and environs had similar challenges. Our colleague from the other polling unit beside the NUC quarters gate (Karu) just left here with the same complaint. But we assure you that the outcome of the elections won’t be tampered with.”

Meanwhile, the polling officer at PU012, identified as Kudirat, confirmed that the sorting and counting of the ballots were done in the presence of all party agents, and they signed the results. “As expected, duplicated copies of the results have been distributed to the party agents and the security officials. We also encouraged them to join us at the collation centre so they could attest to the transparency of the process.” (The Sun)

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