Cross River IPAC wants involvement in BVAS inspection, redeployment of Police Commissioner
The Inter-Party Advisory Council in Cross River State (IPAC) has called for personal inspection of the Bi-modal voters Accreditation system machines (BVAS) following claims of tinkering by the agents of the Cross River State government.
Furthermore, they requested the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to redeploy the State Police Commissioner, Alhaji Sule Balarabe over diminishing confidence in his handling of security during the exercise on February 25 and March 11.
The demands were made a few hours after INEC held a press conference denying claims that BVAS machines meant for the State were diverted to the Governor’s lodge to manipulate the 2023 elections in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates.
IPAC said after meeting with the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, Pastor (Prof.) Gabriel .O. Yomere in the company of some Heads of department assured them he was going to lead political parties in the company of the Commissioner of Police and Director of DSS to inspect the BVAS by 2 pm on Tuesday after Monday, January 23rd, 2023 contrary to their initial agreement was akin to shifting the goal-post but maintaining that all the BVAS are intact without being allowed even to sight them let alone inspect them.
The REC claimed the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of operations, DPC Frank Inaku confirmed that the BVAS were intact after the police and DSS inspected the machines which are not configured and will be configured according to polling units that to test their functionality before the elections.
Against this alleged infraction, the IPAC state chairman who led other members to walk out of the meeting called for a more thorough investigation from INEC national headquarters, Abuja for the purported change in the agreement by the REC without prior information to be reversed.
IPAC insist on inspecting the BVAS and in addition request to be allowed to take a record of the serial numbers or barcode of the 3,281 BVAS sent to the State for purposes of due scrutiny of the machines to avoid the possible incidence of fake BVAS infiltrating the elections in the State.
By: Archibong Emmanuel
(Snr. Reporter)
