Faults preloaded BVAS
From Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
The Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate for the 2023 House of Representatives election in Ogbia Federal Constituency of Bayelsa State, Daniel Iworiso-Markson, has described the conduct of the election last Saturday as a charade.
Speaking at a press conference in Yenagoa, Iworiso-Markson said there were a lot of anomalies in the conduct of the election and was therefore surprised that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), went ahead to declare a winner.
According to him, the “obvious electoral malfeasance “that took place was allegedly perpetrated by some officials of INEC in connivance with security personnel and agents of the ruling party in the state.
He said: “The House of Representative election in Ogbia on Saturday fell short of expectation on so many levels. The late arrival of electoral materials to most polling units triggered a chain of events that resulted in a series of anomalies which comprehensively compromised the integrity of the elections.
“With the late arrival of INEC officials and materials, election proper commenced very late in most polling units, as late as 2 pm and voting in some polling units continued till late into the night which gave ample room for manipulations. The late commencement of voting coupled with the doctoring of the BVAS in most of the polling units created heightened tension among willing voters.
“In ward 11 unit 7 in my community, the BVAS was already preloaded with 158 votes even when no single vote had been cast. It took the effort of vigilant voters in the unit who challenged the INEC officials with several calls made to the Electoral Officer in charge of Ogbia to remedy the tampered BVAS. After a long wait with no solution to the compromised BVAS, the election in unit 7 was cancelled.
“The problem of preloaded votes in the BVAS was not unique to unit 7 alone. Similar discoveries were later made in some units at Imiringi, Emakalala, Kolo, Akipleai, Ogbia Town, Otuoke, Emadeke and other polling units in several communities across the federal constituency. But unfortunately, voters in communities were not vigilant enough to challenge this electoral fraud.”
While decrying the deploying of fake agents that were used to buy votes in dollars with the security agents unable to stop them, he called on INEC to revisit results released in favour of PDP in Otuoke, Imiringi, Elebele and Otuasega where there was monumental fraud.
The SDP candidate said steps have been taken to write to INEC to furnish the party with details of the unit-by-unit results across the 13 wards with other relevant documents to enable them to carefully study the results with the help of forensic experts.
He added that once this is done, it will guide the SDP on the next step to take in their quest to restore sanity in the electoral process.