How BVAS came to judgement in Osun

• Published date: 01 February 2023
• Publication title: Nigeria - The Nation

The 108-page majority judgement delivered last Friday, January 27, 2023, by the Osun Governorship Election Petition Tribunal reveals three winners and three losers. The winners are: The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Progress, Adegboyega Oyetola; his political party, the APC; and the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS). The losers are: The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Ademola Adeleke; his political party, the PDP; and the Independent National Electoral Commission, which conducted the election and mischievously declared Adeleke the winner.

The main contention before the Tribunal was over-voting: The number of votes used in declaring the results exceeded the number of accredited voters and verified votes captured by the BVAS machine on election day. Such excess votes are illegal, according to the revised Electoral Act 2022. Although this was not immediately apparent on election day but reports were rife that election went on illegally until late in the night in some PDP strongholds, such as Ede. I was in Osun Government House at the time and heard those reports.

By the time Adeleke was declared the winner by INEC the following morning, Oyetola and the APC had had enough. They requested and obtained a certified true copy of the BVAS report from INEC shortly after the results were announced. After careful study, it was discovered that the total number of accredited voters and the number of votes recorded on Form EC8A in 749 (later reduced to 744) polling units in 10 Local Government Areas did not tally with the number of accredited voters and verified votes recorded in the BVAS machine for those polling units.

These discrepancies formed the major ground for their petition. Another ground is certificate forgery by Adelekle to which I return later.

On being served the petition by Oyetola and the APC, Adeleke and the PDP rushed to INEC to obtain a copy of the BVAS report, while the case was already pending in court. This led INEC to generate yet another BVAS report, termed 'synchronized' BVAS report, without withdrawing the BVAS report previously issued to Oyetola and APC, leading to two contradictory BVAS reports tendered in court. Interestingly, both BVAS reports revealed significant over voting as affirmed even by INEC's own witness. Perhaps sensing the contradictions, Adeleke's counsel disowned the synchronized BVAS report.

Ordinarily, the synchronized BVAS report was expected to rhyme with the original BVAS...