Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said the insinuations that the redeployment of a former Director of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Chidi Nwafor, was partly responsible for the technical glitches experienced during the presidential and National Assembly polls held on February 25 were attempts to mislead the public.
The Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi while reacting to a media report alleging that the redeployment of the ICT director was partly responsible for the technical glitches insisted that BVAS performed its duty excellently on the election day.
He explained that BVAS cannot be described as an invention of one staff member of INEC, rather, it was the Commission’s idea and invention, just as the now rested Smart Card Reader (SCR).
Oyekanmi said having decided to invent the BVAS, the Commission gave the assignment to the most relevant Department within the Commission, which was the ICT to bring the idea into fruition.
He added that the ICT Department was populated by a sizable number of brilliant Engineers and IT experts, who worked very hard as a team for several months to successfully actualize the Commission’s dream, saying after completing the assignment of designing the BVAS, the ICT Department notified the Commission.
The chief press secretary said, therefore, it was improper to insinuate that a former Director of ICT or any other staff for that matter single-handedly designed the BVAS.
He stressed that anyone was to be praised for the invention, it would be the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, because the buck stops on his table and the Commission that conceived the innovation in the first place.
Oyekanmi said, “At the same time, to insinuate that the transfer of a former Director of ICT to another State as Administrative Secretary was both a demotion and the cause of the glitches experienced with the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) in the afternoon of 25th February 2023 during the Presidential election is nothing but an attempt to mislead the public.”
He emphasised that IReV and BVAS were two separate entities, and they were independent of each other.
He said the relationship between the two was that the BVAS was used to transmit the picture of Form EC8A, which was the Polling Unit Result Sheet in PDF format, as well as the Voters’ Accreditation Data to the IREV.
According to him, Therefore, the glitches suffered by the IReV for some hours on 25th February could not have affected the functionality of the BVAS, which in any case, performed its duty excellently on election day.
“There’s also a provision for the BVAS to transmit the PU result in the offline mode if there is no network at the polling unit at time of the activity.”
Oyekanmi was of the opinion that the glitches could still have occurred even if the former ICT Director was still in charge.
He said: “Recently, Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter had serious glitches that prevented many people including me from using those applications for many hours. But eventually, the respective companies surmounted the challenges. Now, would you say that the glitches occurred just because one Engineer resigned from or was transferred within the company? Of course not.”
Oyekanmi noted that while the former ICT Director was indeed a respected, brilliant employee who played his role satisfactorily, there are equally other staff members within the Commission that can effectively play his former role.
He said contrary to the impression the position of Administrative Secretary was a demotion, it was an elevation.
Oyekanmi said the Administrative Secretary at the State office is the most senior staff there, second only to the Resident Electoral Commissioner, stressing that when the REC is not around, the Administrative Secretary becomes an Acting REC.
