As the preparations for the 2023 general elections garner momentum, the former minister of aviation, Osita Chidoka, has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to review its Biometric Validation System (BVAS).
Chidoka said Nigerians increasingly believe that the system is free and fair and that their vote would count.
He disclosed this while fielding questions on Thursday morning on the Arise TV’s Morning Show program, discussing “2023 presidential election permutations”.
He said that INEC coming out to say that it was cleaning the register, with over a million people removed from the voters’ register, showed a problem with the registration system.
“So long as there is the possibility that people can upload accredited voters without a proper accreditation happening, then it puts all the elections in the air.
“Fundamentally, we need INEC to appoint one of the four leading consulting firms in Nigeria to review the INEC system to ensure it meets the standard and has integrity.
“We need INEC to subject their system to a third-party evaluation. I am making that call again because there is a need for INEC to have a third-party validation of their technological process”, he said.
He further added that Nigerians have started to have trust in the electoral system.
“If the elections have to be free and fair, then voting has to be done. Nigerians were saying they would come out and vote; people increasingly believed that the system is free and fair and has integrity. If people think their vote will not count, then we would not have this number of people registering for the elections”.
