Osun REC admits politicians, INEC staff bypassed BVAS

The Resident Electoral Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission in Osun State, Dr Mutiu Agboke, has said Bimodal Voter Accreditation System did not allow over-voting during the last governorship election in the state.

Agboke, who spoke at the palace of Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Abdulrosheed Akanbi, during a visit to the royal father on Tuesday, also said the judgment of the Election Petition Tribunal which annulled the outcome of the July 16 poll in the state, exposed how over voting can occur.

The REC, in a video clip of the speech he made at the palace of Oluwo, obtained in Osogbo on Wednesday also said some politicians in connivance with INEC staff members may have deliberately bypassed BVAS during the polls.

He said, “It was BVAS that helped INEC to expose those who carried out over-voting on election day. So it was not the BVAS that created the problem, that should be corrected. Based on that ruling, we have identified some inadequacies from the politicians, voters, our staff and our responsibility is to ensure that we cover all these gaps so that the votes of the Osun people can speak for them.

“Politicians in connivance with our staff members deliberately bypassed the BVAS. It was this BVAS that exposed over-voting during the Osun election. So with this judgment of the tribunal, we have known how over-voting can happen. We are going to beam our searchlight on those staff members and I can assure you that all of us should own the process together. This is the way we can correct these anomalies.”

Speaking in a similar vein during a stakeholders’ meeting held with chairmen of political parties in Osun State at the INEC state office in Osogbo on Wednesday, Agboke said once BVAS was not used and a vote was cast, over-voting would occur.

“So I want to tell Osun people that the issue of over-voting was not orchestrated by BVAS. We did not use BVAS to vote or cast our ballot. Our ballot was manual voting; over-voting was caused by fraudulent people that came to vote on election day. They are criminally minded.

“Let us stop all these blame games on INEC, let us open our eyes very well on the election. Watch out for our staff who may want to connive with politicians. We must all own the process together.”