The Bayelsa West Senatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 general elections, Henry Seriake Dickson on Saturday said that the bi-modal voter authentication system (BVAS) is the best thing that has happened to democratic in Nigeria stating that it has significantly improved the electoral system.
Speaking at Toru Orua in Sagbama local government of after casting his vote Dickson who is the immediate past governor of Bayelsa noted that the impact of technology has checked and reduced electoral malpractices.
Dickson noted that as a member of senate committee on INEC, he fought for the adoption of BVAS and the electronic transmission of results in the amended electoral act.
He noted that if the process was sanitised, the results would be acceptable to all parties and the judiciary would play less roles in determining who wins elections in Nigeria.
He said” For the first time , I was accredited smoothly in less than two minutes.
“In 2015, the card reader did not recognise my fingerprint, I voted with the incident form, same for 2019 but in this election, BVAS worked for me It is an improvement. iIt may not be perfect but we can keep improving.
“From the way it worked here, the process was seamless and I hope it works the same way across board and it has vindicated my efforts for the adoption of technology in the electoral system.
“The process is very important, as well as the outcome of the process and with BVAS, it is now difficult for unpopular candidates to win elections, BVAS has checked violence that most politicians relied on.
“The elections across my area and Bayelsa from field reports was violent free and I feel the introduction of BVAS was instrumental to this.