Presidential Elections: Between Ghana-Nigerian: 7 reasons BVAS may never work in Nigeria — Inquiry.
Some quarters are growing concerned that Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, cannot conduct free, fair, and credible elections. This concern gained gravitas last week after Ghana’s successful presidential elections.
Regardless of the technology, that is the card reader and so on, brought into the general elections conducted by the Professor Attahiru Jega-led INEC in 2011 and 2015, and on their outcomes, Nigerians have really expressed their disappointment for the elections as held in 2019 and 2023. The latter is evident in the floodgate through which post-pre-election litigations were unleashed.
The 2015 presidential election in Nigeria was the only election that saw an incumbent President, Goodluck Jonathan, concede defeat; the rest seemed to refer to those results associated with some inaudible discords created by an absence of trust or integrity.

( PC: Pincrest)
Last week in Ghana, before announcing results even after the final compilation of results for its presidential election, Mahamudu Bawumia, the incumbent Vice President and the ruling New Patriotic Party, NPP candidate, called his opposition candidate to concede defeat.
Madam Jean Mensa is the chairperson of Ghana’s Electoral Commission and she announced the results later.
From the extensive field and interviews, seven principal issues have been couched as reasons why BVAS may never work here in Nigeria like in Ghana.
The critical difference between elections held in Ghana and Nigeria using BVAS
The integrity of electoral managers.
Ghana: Integrity of electoral officials in Ghana is a hallmark for success with Bimordal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS. Transparent practices, accountability, and an honest commitment toward credible elections made the implementation smooth. Leadership prioritizes above personal or political interests.
Nigeria: In Nigeria, the human factor has constituted a major hindrance. Agitation by Nigerians have often been around blood, corruption, and collusion regarding sabotaging the whole process of BVAS. They create conditions which deny the trust of usage against the credibility in the system by disenfranchising the efficiency of this system.
Appointment of Independent Officials
Ghana: These appointees to act as those who conduct elections as electoral officers in Ghana have been chosen on merit and non-partisanship. This completely shields the process from manipulation by any demonic influence because those charged with the work are not partisan and thus reduce human interference in the operation of any technology, most notably BVAS.
Here in Nigeria, appointment is synonymous with sourcing political affiliations or ties with some of their biggest names. Some carry party badges or are the kin of an officeholder. Such flagrant partisanship leaves an environment for BVAS to be misused before intentional efforts are made toward sabotage.
Retention of proven characters
Ghana: Ghana believes in continuity, important institutional memory, retaining proven leaders who have earned credibility in past elections and whose know-how is applied to future ones, fostering trust in electoral management.
A perfect case in point in Ghana was Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, who happened to be the first substantive chairman of the commission in 1993 and stayed there till 2015 because of his track record in honesty and integrity which has ultimately transformed the Ghanaian electoral landscape.
At the 25th anniversary ceremony of the Institute for Economic Affairs, IEA, in Ghana, in 2014, Professor Jega said: “We Nigerians owe much to Dr. Afari Gyan. Beyond doubt, he has been the longest-serving electoral commissioner in the whole continent of Africa and.. he has done a great deal in stabilizing the electoral system in your country H
Ghana.”
“The lesson has been for us listening to and learning a lot from his experiences, the challenges he faced, how he addressed them and how we could do better than he had done because it was very important for us to be able to do that.”In Nigeria, it is common practice to remove from their posts electoral officials reputed for integrity.
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