Ahead of next year’s general election, the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria has assured Nigerian voters that the deployment of the Biometric Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and electronic transmission of results of the 2023 election are possible with the quality of telecoms architecture available in the country.
ATCON which is the umbrella body for all the telecoms companies in Nigeria, including MTN, Airtel, 9Mobile, Glo, and other operators, pointed out that the nation’s telecommunication infrastructure had over the years matured to the level it could transmit election results in 2023.
The Chief Operating Officer, the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, Ajibola Olude offered these assurances in an interview with The PUNCH on Sunday, against the backdrop of the scepticism expressed by the All Progressives Congress leadership on the BVAS and e-transmission of results.
APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, had expressed doubts over INEC’s capacity to deliver a credible election using the BVAS and the Results Viewing Portal, otherwise known as the electronic transmission of election results.
He expressed his reservation when a Commonwealth delegation on the 2023 general elections paid a courtesy visit to him at the party secretariat in Abuja last Wednesday.
Adamu’s fear was re-echoed by the party’s National Organising Secretary, Suleiman Argungu, who identified stable power supply as one of the obstacles facing the innovation.
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Argungu also cited his home state of Kebbi as an example of an area where such technology could experience some hitches.
Their positions generated strong reactions from the opposition parties, including the Peoples Democratic Party, Labour Party, New Nigeria Peoples Party and others, which accused the ruling party of plotting to rig the election.
But the two party chieftains 24 hours later clarified the reservations they made on the technology, stating that they were not opposed to the deployment of the innovation during next year’s polls but merely tasked the INEC on its readiness to deploy the technology.
In a statement, Felix Morka who is the APC spokesman stated Adamu was misquoted saying; ‘At a meeting with the Commonwealth pre-election delegation, yesterday, Wednesday, November 23, 2022, in response to a question regarding the country’s preparations for next year’s election, the national chairman noted that while preparations were in top gear, he tasked INEC to take effective steps to bridge any gaps that may be created by electricity and telecommunications network challenges in certain outlying voting districts in the country to ensure a smooth and successful deployment of BVAS and other technologies to ensure free and transparent elections.’
Morka further argued that the APC regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), midwifed the successful reform of the Electoral Act and BVAS, among other technological innovations and has superintended the conduct of credible, free, fair and transparent elections in Edo, Anambra, Ekiti and Osun states.
However, speaking on the capacity of the telecoms to transmit election results without hiccups, the COO, the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, Olude, said the Nigerian Communications Commission has been pursuing rural telephony vigorously to ensure national coverage before the election.