Yiaga Africa, an election observer group, has scored the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) low on the conduct of the just concluded Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Area Councils Election.

The Executive Director, Yiaga Africa, Mr Samson Itodo, said this at the group’s post election news conference on Monday in Abuja.

Itodo said that Yiaga Africa deployed trained and accredited citizens’ observers under its Watching The Vote (WTV) initiative to monitor the election and observe its conduct.

He said that the findings revealed the election was characterised by operational deficiencies, election security challenges, and abysmal voter turnout.

“As noted in our mid-day situational statement, the FCT Area Council election was fraught with shortcomings and infractions.

“These include late deployment of election materials, poor distribution of PWD assistive materials, and uneven allocation of voters to polling units and malfunctioning of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).

“Yiaga Africa considers these challenges a rollback in the quality of election day administration,” he said.

Itodo added:“Yiaga Africa had also predicted a low turnout of voters in the election, and this was manifest in polling units visited, especially in the Abuja Municipal Area Council Center. ”

He said that Yiaga Africa WTV findings showed late deployment of election materials and delayed commencement of poll in most areas.

He added that although BVAS was deployed in all polling units, technological glitches was observed in its usage.

He said that the BVAS was fraught with challenges, including wrong configuration and failure to accredit voters.

He added that there was also delays in technicians’ response to BVAS complaints in some polling units as well as delays in authenticating voters within processing time.

“Yiaga Africa observed that in some polling units with over 1000 registered voters, INEC deployed only one BVAS, indicating an inconsistency in the guidelines for the BVAS deployment,” he said.

Itodo said that the group observed delays in uploading election results on INEC platform.

He said that Yiaga Africa observed reported disenfranchisement of voters as a result of missing names on the voter register deployed to polling units.

Itodo said that the group also discovered uneven distribution of voters to new polling units and noted imbalance in the distribution of voters to new polling units.

He said that the imbalance created challenges with the management of polling units with over 1000 registered voters.

He said that while some polling units had as many as 2,500 registered voters, others had less than 5 voters within the same location.

Itodo said that Yiaga Africa observers witnessed an incident of vote-buying in some polling units and security officials deployed to the polling unit were complicit, as people were seen collecting bundles of N1000 notes.

He said that the group also noticed inadequate ballot papers and deployment of wrong ballot papers as some places indicated that the number of ballot papers deployed were less than the number of registered voters.

He urged President Muhammadu Buhari to without further delay, give assent to the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill 2022.

He urged INEC to undertake an audit of the BVAS and ensure all the technical glitches with the device were resolved, ahead of Ekiti and Osun 2022 off-cycle governorship election.

Itodo said that this was to prevent possible disenfranchisement of voters and also inspire public confidence in electoral technologies being deployed INEC for election.

He said that to avert possible voter disenfranchisement in subsequent elections, INEC should synchronise all voter registration information with the newly created polling units on its online and offline databases.

He called for timely upload of polling unit results on the INEC online portal to boost public trust and confidence in election results declared by INEC and maintain the highest level of transparency in the results collation.

Itodo called on political parties and contestants to show maturity and respect for laid down rules and guidelines for the conduct of elections.

He commended the electorate and security agencies for the peaceful conduct of the election and applauded the voters for their resilience and determination to vote in spite of logistical challenges.

The Founder, Albino Foundation, Mr Jake Epelle decried unavailability of magnifying glasses and brail for Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) adding that only one magnifying glass was seen and that most ad hoc staff did not know what it was used for.

Epelle said that the group also observed that many of the Polling Units were set and mounted on dais making it difficult for blind persons and PWDs to access accreditation and voting points.

“In some instances, the Polling Officers claimed that all PWDS that came to vote were carried.’’

He said this was against INEC assurances of providing brails, magnifying glasses and making polling units accessible to PWDs.

He expressed firm believe that there was still room for improvement by INEC especially in the area of inclusion of PWDs in the process since the poll was a litmus test for 2023 General Elections.