YIAGA Africa has rated the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) used in the presidential and National Assembly polls on Saturday high.
Yiaga Africa’s Watching The Vote in its preliminary findings released in Abuja on Sunday, said the accreditation machines functioned well in 88 percent of the polling units its election observers monitored across the country.
Chairman of the organisation’s Watching The Vote Working Group, Dr Hussaine Abdu and Executive Director, YAIGA Africa, Samson Itodo, signed the report, which also addressed issues on voters ‘intimidation, transmission of results and presence of party agents .
It read, in part, “In 88 per cent of polling units, the BVAS functioned properly. However, in nine per cent of polling units, the BVAS malfunctioned, and it was fixed and in two per cent of the polling units, it malfunctioned and was replaced,” .
On secrecy of balloting, the report said, “In five per cent of polling units, there were no voting cubicles. Similarly, 13 per cent of polling units were set up in a way individuals could see how the voters marked their ballot papers.”
On voter intimidation, it said its observers reported that it was only in five per cent of the polling units that voters faced intimidation, harassment or were assaulted, while situations that were identified as likely voter inducement were observed at seven per cent of the monitored polling units.
It noted that the frontline parties, namely All Progressives Congress, APC, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the Labour Party and the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP present agents across most of the polling units.
“During counting, All Progressives Congress (APC) party agents were sighted at 97 percent of polling units; Labour Party (LP) polling agents were sighted at 67 percent of polling units; New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) polling agents were sighted at 51 per cent of polling units, and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) at 99 per cent of polling units,” adding that.
“In 69 per cent of polling units, the Presiding Officer attempted to transmit/send the polling unit result image to the INEC’s online database (IReV),” the group said
