Fresh reports reaching the desk of Africa Digital News, New York has revealed that the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA has on Monday, insisted on the particular need for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to fully deploy some of the already announced Bimodal Voter Registration System (BVAS) for the 2023 elections.
Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko who is HURIWA’s National Coordinator had in a statement, also pushed for the establishment of a Electoral Offences Commission so that some of the rogue politicians and compromised electoral referees will be punished and not allowed to jeopardise the next general elections.
Read Also: Postpone 2023 Census – HURIWA Charges Nigerian Govt
The group had also revealed that it is amazing how desperate politicians approach the Imo State High Court to get a restraining order to stop the deployment of BVAS by INEC in next year’s elections.
According to the group, next year’s general elections is a game-changer and a game over to politicians who have perfected the art and the act of rigging elections and perpetuate themselves in office like Methuselah.
Stipulated in the Electoral Act of 2022, BVAS is a technological system which allows for accreditation of voters through biometrics capturing, uploading of results online, amongst others and it has been described by many as an upgrade of the smartcard reader which had been previously used in the last general elections which achieved some results in the country’s electoral process.
BVAS and the Election Result Viewing Portal (IReV) represent two crucial technological advances for enhancing the transparency of election results and upscaling public belief in electoral outcomes and according to INEC, these technologies are addressing the 10 most prevalent flaws in the nation’s election result management process such as alteration of votes at polling units, distortion of number of accredited voters, collation of false results, mutilation of results and computational errors, swapping of results sheets, forging of results sheets, snatching and destruction of results sheets, obtaining declaration and return involuntarily, making declaration and return while result collation is still in progress and poor record-keeping.
“The 2023 elections must never be allowed to be jeopardised by rogue politicians desperate to perpetuate themselves in power or for politicians so greedy that they think it is their turn to be the President of Nigeria and so they are prepared to use criminal means to manipulate the election. Nigerians must remain eternally vigilant.
“HURIWA also calls for the speedy passage and signing into law of the National Electoral Offences Commission to demonstrate that election-riggers will be dealt with, as argued by INEC chairman who said the work on the country’s electoral process would remain incomplete if electoral offenders continue to walk freely.
‘HURIWA believes that election offenders are as horrible as terrorists and economic saboteurs and so must be decisively dealt with by an unambiguously created independent commission backed up by an enabling Act but this commission must not be overstaffed or turned into job opportunities for political thugs but the commission’s staff strength should be pegged at 50 with the most competent Nigerians recruited to run it.’
