There have been reported cases of malfunctioning of Bimodal Voters Authentication System (BVAS) machines delayed in Saturday’s l ocal council elections in the Federal Capital Territory
The BVAS which is more advanced than the replaced Smart Card Reader can undertake fingerprint and facial identification to prevent the use of stolen voters’ cards or impersonation.
In some Area 2 Polling Units , voters were therefore frustrated due to the malfunctioning of the BVAS.
A voter who simply gave his name as Boniface, said he has spent over two hours at the polling unit but could not be accredited due to the faulty BVAS.
Independent National Electoral Commission INEC election officials, who refused to give their names confirmed that the BVAS was not working smoothly.
“The machine (BVAS) is not working smoothly, it detects some faces and would not respond to fingerprint and also would not recognise some registered voters despite having their permanent voters card (PVCs) and their names on the register.
“I have however reported this to the appropriate authority and we are awaiting a replacement of the machine,” one of the officials said..
INEC FCT Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Alhaji Yahaya Bello could not be reached for comments during a visit to his office as he was reported to be on the field assignment.
The Head of Department (HoD) Voter Education and Publicity (VEP) was also not around as she went on monitoring.
However, two officials, who cannot be named, said the commission was aware of the challenges, and appropriate officials have been deployed to address the situation.
“You can see that our bosses have gone out on the complainants. The issues are being addressed,” one of the officials said.
