The Chairman, Section of Public Interest and Development Law (SPIDEL) of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Dr Monday Ubani, has commended the use of the Bimodal Voting Accreditation System (BVAS) in the Abia State governorship election.
Commenting on the Abia election which was won by Labour Party’s Alex Otti, Ubani said Obingwa Local Government Area (LGAs) has always been the the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s last card in previous Abia governorship elections.
“It happened in 2019, the candidate was doing very well, all of a sudden we heard eighty something thousand votes from Obingwa, and that made the entire difference. That has been their previous practices, in 2015 that is what they did in Obingwa,” Ubani said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily breakfast programme on Thursday. Obingwa was the last of the 17 LGAs where results were announced in the Abia governorship election.
“Obingwa has always been used as their last card, they wait for you to come with good results from all other local governments, the next thing you hear is eighty something thousand from Obingwa and that makes the difference and they declare the winner, they have been doing it over time and getting away with it, but BVAS has changed all that,” the lawyer said.
“We have seen that BVAS is a game changer, it is something that is worth exploring, providing somebody would not hack the system, it will certainly be a game changer.
“What we have started to do is deployment of technology in our electoral process and we started with this issue of BVAS now and then transmission.
“The way to start is at the local government, to the state and then to the federal, it is worth exploring.”
Ubani also pointed out that electoral credibility would be guaranteed when there is less involvement of human factors.
“It is the human factor that messes up even when we have the best of laws, our electoral law is perfect.
“The less involvement of human factors, the more credible the electoral process in Nigeria would be,” he said.
Otti scored 175,467 while his closest rival, Okechukwu Ahiwe polled 88,529 leaving Enyinnaya Nwafor with 28,972 as the distant third. The LP candidate also won 10 of the 17 local government areas in the state, PDP got six while the YPP got one.