From Umar Danladi Ado, Sokoto
In Sokoto, the State Independent Electoral Commission (SOSEIC), says it will not use Biometric Voter Accreditation System, BVAS machine in conducting local government elections coming up on Saturday in the state.
However, the commission assured that no single eligible voter will be disenfranchised during the conduct of the elections scheduled to be held across the 23 council areas.
The chairman of the commission, Alhaji Aliyu Muhammad gave the assurance while briefing newsmen on the preparations for the conduct of the elections in the state.
He confirmed that the commission would not use the card reader and BVAS machines in the upcoming elections in the state.
He questioned that INEC used the BVAS machine in the last elections but encountered serious lapses, saying that SOSIEC cannot afford such failures to occur during and after the exercise.
“Unless and until BVAS is fully developed, that is when we can think of using the machine, but as it is now, it is still very much in experimental stages, and we are not going to take the risks of using BVAS machines.
Aliyu stated that already the commission has had a meeting with key election stakeholders and has mapped out strategies on how best to achieve huge success during and after the elections.
According to him, security agencies and political parties have identified hard-to-reach areas due to security challenges and unanimously resolved provision for relocations of some polling units to areas closest to those communities that can not be reached so that they cast their votes.
Security agencies, in collaboration with political parties, agree to work in synergy, and as a result, concerted measures have been taken to address any unforeseen security challenges.
After the political parties’ primary elections, the commission screened the candidates and gave the political parties time for any substitutions; In which some parties compiled and made some substitutions of their candidates, and the SOSIEC affected the changes accordingly.
The commission will assign two to three people to work as election officers in each of the polling units.
There are 3,991 polling units across the 23 local government areas of the state.
He said all the employed ad-hoc staff would be trained in their respective local government areas.
The recruitment of the ad-hoc staff is in process, and recruitment will be open to everybody, including the NYSC members, students and civil servants.
He said 15 political parties were participating, and each of them has already filed in their candidate for chairmanship, deputies and Councillorship positions.
