The Resident Electoral Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission in Osun State, Dr Mutiu Agboke, has revealed that some politicians might have colluded with some members of staff of the electoral commission during the last governorship election in the state, to bypass the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).
This came after Ademola Adeleke was sacked by an Osun Tribunal sacked as Governor of the state following claims of over-voting during the election.
While speaking at the palace of Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Abdulrasheed Akanbi during a recent visit, the REC said the judgment of the Election Petition Tribunal which cancelled the outcome of the July 16 poll in the state, showed how over-voting can occur.
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.
Also speaking at a recent stakeholders meeting held with chairmen of political parties in Osun State at the INEC state office in Osogbo, Agboke said over-voting will happen when BVAS is not used.
He said: “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.”
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