Professor Kunle Ajayi, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) National Commissioner for the Osun 2022 gubernatorial election has revealed that with the introduction of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), it will be very difficult to rig elections in Nigeria.
This revelation was made during an interview session with journalists on the sideline of the INEC pre-election preparation workshop in Osogbo.
While maintaining that the Ekiti 2022 gubernatorial election had become a standard for assessing elections in the country, Ajayi stated that the purpose of the workshop was to look for ways to match the standard set in Ekiti State and perform better.
The INEC National Commissioner revealed that the workshop was aimed at retraining their staff in the use of the BVAS, logistic management, recruitment of ad-hoc staff and how to have an inclusive election.
In his words, “We are here to train our staff. They have been earlier trained but we believe by now they would have become rusty because the last election was four years ago.
“This training is needed in order to meet the contemporary challenges in the electoral system.
“We are going to train them in the new technology introduced by INEC. With the BVAS, I assure you that nobody can rig elections again in Nigeria.
“We must teach our staff how to manage it, how to use it and how to manage whatever problem that crops up from using it.
“We want to train them in logistics management and ensure that the necessary logistics are in place before the election.
“We want to train them on how to recruit ad-hoc staff. INEC staff alone cannot do it. So, there is need to bring in some capable hands. The need to train the ad-hoc staff is why we also want to train our staff to train them.
“We want to ensure that the election is inclusive. INEC has a policy of inclusivity. Everybody is a stakeholder, important and vital to the Nigerian election.
“Provision of braille ballot for the blind, magnifying glasses for albinos, accessibility to the ballot boxes and how to manage People With Disabilities (PWDs) so as not to irritate them and make them feel loved, is all what we are going to train them for,” he stated.
In his speech, the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner for Osun, Professor Abdulganiy Olayinka Raji, stated that the electoral umpire had observed all the legal processes for the election to be a success.
Raji also disclosed that the Commission had given a list of identified probable flash points to security agencies, with the intention to make the 2022 Osun gubernatorial election a secured exercise.