The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Edo State office, has organised a mock accreditation exercise on the use of Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) in a bid to restore confidence among electorate.

Speaking during the monitoring exercise in designated polling units in the state on Saturday, Obo Efanga, Edo state Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of INEC, said the voters accreditation system deployed is in working order.

Efanga, who said the mock accreditation exercise took place in six local government areas and in 12 polling units across the state, noted that the essence was to test the BVAS ahead of deployment for the actual elections.

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“We have been using BVAS in the last two years in other states. The mock accreditation is to let people know how it works and to be sure that the BVAS is working.
“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.

Efanga added: “It is not compulsory that everybody must come out to do this but the few that will come we will use them to test that the system is working well. I cannot say I am satisfied for now, because it started at 8:30am and it will continue until 2:30pm.

“The most important thing is that the BVAS is working well, it accredited each person within few minutes in all the polling units we have visited,” he said.