Mr BVAS Is My Man Of The Year 2023 -By Istifanus Ishaku Dafwang

Some of you may recall my article on how INEC can be used by Government to facilitate ELECTION RIGGING during the election. I wrote the article two weeks to the date of the Presidential election on 25th Feb. 2023. In the said article, I cautioned that even with the presence of BVAS which INEC had assured and reassured Nigerians 3 x 24/7, that it is the most full proof ANTIRIGGING MACHINE ever invented in the World, the Government in power can still find a way to circumvent it. In that article, I recalled that as a former Resident Electoral Commissioner in 2015 general elections, I religiously preached that the Card Reader which was being used Nationwide in 2015 for the first time, was a full proof ANTIRIGGING MACHINE!!!!!!!, only for me to receive instructions from my Headquarters in Abuja, at about 12:30pm, and In the middle of the election on 28th March 2015, that the Card Reader had failed in some States and therefore, manual accreditation should be allowed under similar conditions. I was terribly disappointed with this turn of events. I felt like a fool but as an obedient servant, I immediately called my Management team and conveyed the message, believing that my INEC Chairman must have taken the decision in good faith. However, before I called in my Management team to pass on the directive, I prayed to God to intervene in His own way because I still believed in the sanctity of the Card Reader. After passing on the instructions, I prepared a small handbill in which I mentioned the new directives for distribution to as many polling units as we could get to. It was then that God surprised me beyond measure. I personally took the handbill to the nearest Polling unit to my office. True enough the Card Reader was having problems but in line with our earlier standing instructions, the Presiding Officer had sent for a replacement. When I mentioned the new directives from Abuja, the voters were angry, alleging that I was conniving with Abuja in order to rig the election for the ruling party!! I humbly apologized and thanked them for patiently waiting for a replacement. Going back to the office I thanked God that even when INEC lost faith in the Card Reader, God vindicated me in my staunch support for it’s use. It didn’t take long for me to confirm that the rejection of the Card Reader in some States was a strategy to RIG the Presidential election in connivance with some of the high Chiefs of INEC within and without.

When in 2023, the BVAS lived up to expectation for the results of the National Elections but developed GLITCHES!!!!!!, in the case of the Presidential election results, I was so ashamed that the INEC Chairman and another Professorial colleague could so blatantly defend the failure of the Commission to transmit polling unit results real time in one out of three elections conducted simultaneously.

Now that INEC itself has disowned BVAS, as shown in the verdict of the Presidential Election Tribunal, How is INEC going to conduct the upcoming off-season elections?

I vote Mr. BVAS as the man of the year. The present INEC Commission has no moral justification to use BVAS in subsequent elections.

With the ungodly “gossips” coming from CHICAGO, I appeal to my President to do the needful NOW and NOW. SACK THE PRESENT INEC and bring in a new team that can defend and protect the effective and efficient use of Mr. BVAS!!! Is it possible to have a real new team? YES and YES. I recall that amongst the RECs and the National Commissioners in 2015, one man stood out in defence of the Card Reader, I could have beaten him to it, but he was a Lawyer and could cite eloquently from both the Electoral Act and the Constitution to defend it. I left INEC in 2016 but he was given a second tenure so he outlasted me in INEC. I followed him keenly in his defence of BVAS. He was unparralled in that regard. PLEASE MAKE HIM THE NEW INEC CHAIRMAN and allow him to make his choice of Commissioners, based on Federal Character principles. He has worked long enough in INEC to know who is who across Nigeria that can work with him to create a new INEC.

I thank the present INEC for giving us Mr BVAS. You have done a good job in that regard and your tenure is up.

Thanks and goodbye.

Prof. Istifanus Ishaku Dafwang
MAESON, NCA, RAS, FASAN, FNIAS
dafwang22@gmail.com
07036998969