The introduction of the BVAS changed the trajectory of election in Nigeria. It was far from perfect but it can get better with time. Change is progressive.
We can’t rule out the fact that some progress were made during the last election.
Prior to the Presidential election, the BVAS worked very well in Osun state and incident of failed BVAS machine was low.
While we can argue that the last election was marred by irregularities and violence, it is pertinent to note that BVAS stopped some of the reccuring problems.
BVAS helped to limit the falsification of votes at polling units and falsification of number of accredited voters. Prior to now, the figures were ridiculous and could easily be manipulated.
With a 3rd wave in Peter Obi, BVAS was the reason the margin was close. Otherwise, the usual election deciding states would have churned out millions of votes from the air in favour of their preferred candidates.
BVAS is also part of the reason Obi has a good case in court.
This is because the votes of the electorate counted. Many godfathers and political heads lost. If not for BVAS, the 84 million registered votes would have been sold to politicians to swing election in their favour.
Governor Lalong lost in Plateau, Governor Ortom lost in Benue, Governor Ugwuanyi lost in Enugu, Governor Ayade lost in Cross River. Governor Ilpeazu lost in Abia. Even Tinubu lost Lagos despite the violence
These are shock results that are uncommon to the Nigerian people.
Most of the problem from the elections came from failure to upload Presidential election results from polling units in real time which led to other ancillary issues that has birth the trust deficit in INEC today.
While INEC claimed it was due to glitches, many Nigerians are yet to be convinced.
INEC would need to fix its issue with transparency because the problem of iREV has to be addressed for trust to be reclaimed.
As for BVAS, while it worked, INEC has to ensure security of persons at each polling units as external sponsored elements created a lots of problems for voters through intimidation.
The entirety of a system like BVAS does not work in isolation. While it has made total votes consistent for the most, inability to transparently upload the results immediately from the polling unit nullifies whatever advantage the introduction of BVAS brought.
What do you make of BVAS with respect to the last election?
