No PVC, no voting, INEC Chairman insists

“There’s a very disturbing development which is the misinformation and disinformation on technological deployments by the fee within the social media house and a few media homes selecting up information bulletins on social media platforms to debate on their morning reveals and political programmes with out reaching out to the fee for its stance on such points.

“One in all such is the latest viral assumption that PVC isn’t required to vote on election day. Let me reiterate the fee’s stance that Part 47 (1) of the Electoral Act 2022 clearly states that.

“An individual attending to vote in an election shall current himself along with his voter’s card to a presiding officer for accreditation on the polling unit within the constituency through which his title is registered.

“Subsequently, the fee is legally sure to solely settle for accreditation of a voter on presentation of a legitimate voter’s card.

“I urge media homes and journalists to all the time attain out to the fee to keep away from spreading and misinformation and disinformation obtained from viral social media posts.”

He mentioned that the fee on its half had an lively social media presence and would proceed to do its greatest to teach Nigerians and debunk such kind of misinformation.

The INEC Chairman who was represented by Mr Lawrence Bayode, Director ICT within the fee mentioned there was no provision within the Electoral Act 2022 that gave the fee the choice to register voters to vote utilizing the digits on the Voter Identification Quantity (VIN).

He additional assured Nigerians gave that the Bimodal Voter Registration System (BVAS) was secured and that the fee had been repelling assaults from hackers.

He mentioned that the BVAS know-how could be deployed to actualize a reputable, truthful, and hitch-free normal election.

“As with each side of our nationwide lives, adopting applied sciences into the electoral course of is all the time met with challenges.

“One main problem was the shortage of a clear-cut authorized framework supporting the deployment of know-how by the fee particularly within the accreditation of voters and the voting course of.

“The deployment of the Sensible Card Readers in 2015 and its use was confronted with varied challenges corresponding to resistance to make use of in some remoted cases, snatching and destruction of gadgets, makes an attempt to control the usage of the gadgets, and most prominently varied judicial pronouncements on the legality of its use.”

Additionally talking, Ms Elizabeth Olorunfemi, Assistant Analysis Fellow, Nationwide Judicial Institute, (NJI), in a paper presentation on “The Position of the Media in Election Reportage” famous the necessity for the media to cross-check details with the electoral umpire earlier than publishing.

Additionally talking on the occasion, the Chief Choose of the FCT Excessive Court docket, Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf famous that the judiciary and the media have been companions in progress and should work collectively to make sure that the nation’s democracy was sustained.

Baba-Yusuf, who was represented by Justice Olukayode Adeniyi, mentioned that the judiciary was all the time able to ship on its constitutional mandate.