Centus Nweze Reporting
Social Democratic Party, SDP, on Tuesday alleged gross incompetence against Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in the conduct of the presidential and National Assembly, NASS, general elections over the last weekend.
The party took a colossal hit, losing a House of Reps seat and even coming behind Labour Party, to distant fourth in Kwara.
But citing Bimodal Voters’Accreditation System, BIVAS, malfunction, incoate accreditation, last minute switch of voting centers thereby confusing voters, the party, through its state chairman said the electoral umpire should be held responsible for the party’s poor performances.
“We had a decent outing but for these irregularities,” Alh. AbdulAzeez Afolabi, State Chairman, SDP, said.
“Reports from some of our polling agents confirmed that in many polling units, many of the voters were disenfranchised because the BVAS malfunctioned.
” In a particular PU, its function was epileptic, accrediting a few electorates but ‘rejecting’ many.
“Regrettably, complaints lodged to the INEC officials on duty couldn’t make any difference,” he said.
The party also alleged that INEC Failed to comply with relevant laws on vote results transmission, too.
“Electoral Act, 2022 is unambiguously clear about ‘Procedure and Collation of Results’, which mandated the INEC to transmit election results electronically from polling units onto its website.
“As we speak, INEC in Kwara State has failed to substantially comply with this provision as it has a backlog of results to be transmitted.
“Many of the electorates were disenfranchised by the problems created by crestionof additional polling units which saw the transfer of majority of voters away from their traditional location,” the state party chairman added.
He also stated that the party believes that the said accreditation for the few is marred with irregularities.
He believes for instance, that voters accreditation through the BIVAS were inchoate, a reason why some unites recorded over voting.
“Many voters were passed on to have been accredited when the machine hadn’t shown green light as should have been.
“There votes ended being tallied as invalid,” he said.