As part of readiness ahead of the presidential election scheduled for February 25, 2023, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has commenced mock accreditation exercise with the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS).
One of the states where the exercises kicked off was Edo.
Meanwhile, the Edo Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mr Obo Efanga, said the BVAS deployed for the exercise was functioning perfectly well in one of the designated polling units in the state.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the mock accreditation took place in six local government areas and in 12 polling units across the state.
Efanga said the exercise was for INEC to test the BVAS ahead of deployment for the actual elections.
“We have been using BVAS in the last two years in other states. The mock accreditation is to let people know how BVAS works and for people to see how it works.
“In Edo, we have not used BVAS before and this is an opportunity for people to see how it actually works and we hope that it will boost confidence in the system.
“This is the third polling unit we are visiting and the mock accreditation is going on smoothly.
“It is also an opportunity for people to identify their new polling units so that when they come on election day, they know where to go.
“Because in the last three months, we have been migrating people from one polling unit to another.
“Some polling units are so large while others are very few. So what we have done is move people from large polling units to those that have few registered voters.
He said this would ensure an even spread of voters on election day and the election would be completed on time.
“The good thing is that we migrated people to new polling units within the same ward,” he said.
On the low turnout of voters for the mock exercise, Efanga said “it is not compulsory that everybody must come out to do this.
“But the few that will come wẹ use them to test that the system is working well.”