The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has reassured Nigerians of the safety of the information stored in the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, (BVAS).
Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee of INEC, Festus Okoye, gave this assurance yesterday as a guest during a television programme.
Okoye, while responding to the question of the likely loss of data captured by the BVAS and INEC Result Viewing Portal, (iReV) if it is reconfigured, promised Nigerians that the information inside them wouldn’t in any way be lost or tempered with.
Prior to the February 25 elections, Nigerians saw these devices as game changers and an instrument to enhance the integrity of the electoral process. However, many questioned the electoral commission after it failed to fully utilize the devices. This situation pushed the presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP), Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, to challenge the outcome of the presidential election and the reconfiguration of these devices by INEC.
Both front-runner candidates had allayed their fears that the data captured by the BVAS and iReV would be lost if the Court of Appeal in Abuja granted the request of INEC to reconfigure these devices ahead of the governorship and state house of assembly elections.
Okoye said, “There is no way the information in the BVAS would be compromised”.
Meanwhile, the INEC commissioner re-emphasised the position of the commission as regards the Temporary Voter Cards (TVC) of two individuals who got judgment from the court to allow them to use their TVCs to vote in the upcoming governorship and national assembly elections.
He insisted that only INEC had the power to determine who had the right to vote or not.
