INEC has said more than 3,000 BVAS will be deployed for the by-elections scheduled for Saturday, April 15. A top official of the commission said that over 3,000 BVAS would be configured and re-configured. The Bimodal Voter Authentication Systems(BVAS) are the newly implemented machines supposed to endure fairer elections.
INEC will conduct supplementary elections at 2,660 polling stations in 185 local governments in 24 states. Elections were previously held for 26 governors, 104 senators, 329 national and 935 state legislative seats. They were elected and further declared winners by the commission in the last election.
The Commission has decided to hold by-elections for all pending Gubernatorial, national and state Assembly supplementary elections where they were previously suspended due to the disruption, including violence.
INEC sources, on condition of anonymity, said more than 2,000 BVAS will be reconfigured and some new BVAS will be set up to replace stolen or damaged machines during the 2023 general election.
“There are some BVAS that will be configured afresh because the ones deployed for the previous election were either stolen or damaged.
“We cannot reconfigure stolen or damaged BVAS, so we need to configure fresh devices for such PUs.
“We are reconfiguring close to 2,500 BVAS and configuring few numbers afresh plus backups.
“The total BVAS that will be deployed, including backup, will be a little above 3,000,” the source said.
Supplementary governorship elections will be held in 20 LGs of each of Adamawa and Kebbi states. Both states have 21 LGs each.
In Adamawa, the elections will be held in 69 polling units. 142 PUs in Kebbi state with 36,935 and 94,209 will have eligible voters, respectively.
For the state Houses of Assembly positions, elections will be held in 57 constituencies across 17 states.
They are Akwa Ibom (one); Bayelsa (one); Ebonyi (five); Edo (three); Ekiti (one); Imo (one); Kaduna (five); Kano (14); Kebbi (eight); Niger (four); Ogun (one); Taraba (one); Yobe (one); Jigawa (three); Katsina (three); Enugu (one); and Adamawa (four).
Senatorial elections will be held in the northwestern states of Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara.
Meanwhile, supplementary elections for the House of Representatives will be held for 31 constituencies in 15 states.
They are; Akwa Ibom (two), Anambra (one), Bayelsa (one), Edo (one), Imo (one), Kano (two), Kebbi (two), Kogi (one), Oyo (two), Rivers (two), Sokoto (11), Taraba (one), Zamfara (two), Jigawa (one) and Ebonyi state (one).
cc: Punch Ng
