THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has extended the voting period of the Anambra state gubernatorial election to 4 pm.
This announcement was contained in a statement by the Resident Electoral Commissioner on Saturday due to the failure of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in many parts of the state.
The Electoral Commissioner said the revised closing time applies to areas where Polling Units opened after the commencement period of 8.30 am.
“In line with existing regulations and guidelines of the Commission, any intending voter who is on the queue by 4.00 pm shall be allowed to vote. All Polling Unit staff must comply with this directive,” the statement read in part.
The Commission said it is investigating the reason behind the failures of the accreditation devices, Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).
The INEC said its technicians had built an update to the devise software to prevent further challenges.
“The update is currently being installed in the concerned BVAS, and we request voters, candidates and agents to be patient and allow our technical staff to solve the problem,” the statement further read in part.
The INEC also said that in cases of sustained malfunction of the BVAS, the Presiding Officer must inform the voters and polling agents that accreditation and voting for the affected Polling Unit shall continue tomorrow or at another time determined by the Commission.
The Commission noted that its deployment had also been largely affected by transportation challenges in some locations in the state.
“It must be noted that on account of security concerns, some of the transporters that were mobilized and collected 50 per cent of their sign-on fee backed out at the last moment, leaving some of our ad-hoc staff stranded.
Also, some of the trained ad-hoc staff backed out at the last moment. The Commission is on top of these challenges, and extant regulations and guidelines will be applied on a case by case basis,” the statement read.
The ICIR had reported that accreditation of voters was yet to commence in some parts of the Anambra state due to failures of the newly introduced BVAS system.
As the time of filing this report, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate, Charles Soludo, is yet to cast his vote.
Lukman Abolade is an Investigative reporter with The ICIR. Reach out to him via [email protected], on twitter @AboladeLAA and FB @Correction94