Former Special Adviser to the President on political matters, Babafemi Ojudu, has cast his vote at his Ward 8, Unit 9, Alayegbe, Ado Ekiti, at the ongoing governorship election in the state.
Speaking after exercising his franchise, Ohudu lamented the BVAS malfunctioning with a call on the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) to rejig efforts on efficiency.
He said, “The people are orderly, but the process is cumbersome. As I said, the people have come en masse to vote. They are peaceful, they are on cue, as expected, but the process is cumbersome.
” Before they could get my vitals, I mean my fingerprint and my photograph, it took almost 30 minutes. And if it takes 30 minutes to capture one person and then make him vote, I do wonder how many hours are going to be required to have 500 people voting. So there is a problem with the system, with the INEC system.
“The Bivas is malfunctioning. I don’t know what is happening in other polling units, but I’m reporting directly from my polling unit. We were here on the dot of 8, and the time now is 8.59. Only I, only one person, has voted, and that’s me.
” So this is not a good one at all. My call to INEC is to immediately see to it that things are working. If the machines are not working, let them do manual.
“We have in the past done manual, and it’s often brought about an easy voting process, and, you know, there have been no delays.
“But this machine that they have here, it’s not working. And I don’t know why INEC should not be able to provide machines that work.”
He therefore called on INEC to do the needful and make the tools efficient.
