Ekiti Decides: An Overview Of Accreditation, Voting Process

[00:00:00]Steve, I can take you in 2 minutes across the polling environment. You know, I like to do this for you.

[00:00:08]Anything. Don't don't I want I knew you were going to say thank you. Well, come with me. Let me show you what is going to look like right there. Earlier on I showed you how it wasn't working. But can I show you now how perhaps things are working right there on the polling on the polling unit where voters are already getting themselves ready and just if I can do that just in about a minute. Of course, you can see for yourself.

[00:00:40]Please wash your feet.

[00:00:42]So, you can see there seems to be some rowdiness and one wonders exactly what the problems are.

[00:00:49]We see the elderly here. But people are probably getting a bit agitated. But come close so you see how this exercise is playing out. Those of you who are at home, if you are a first-time voter, you do not really know how elections are conducted, this is up close and almost personal with what the voters are experiencing. They've disaggregated the line now so we have the larger percentage of the queue over there.

[00:01:17]There's a line behind it and of course there are people who have moved over to this side. So, just for a moment, I wanted to see how this works. So, this is the first process once anybody who gets in the line, you give your PVC to the official who has the BIVAS machine. The PVC is confirmed across the reading sensor on the BIVAS machine just for you to know whether or not the voter belongs in this polling unit. And once that is approved and accredited, there is a picture of biometric verification that is done. Once that is done and that is confirmed, you know, the voter is ready to go.

[00:02:09]So, what comes next after this is somewhat the end of the process because this is the electronic mode of getting You know, we talk about the accreditation process. So, the You've got to verify on different layers, biometrics, facial, and the card. These are the layers of verification that goes into what BVAS stands for. And so, your picture, what has been recorded in the BVAS, has to match. So, when they're taking this picture or taking the fingerprint, everything has to match. If it doesn't, they try it over and over again. It looks like it didn't work at the first time or the first try.

[00:02:52]The man is trying yet again. And it is not working. It's got just got to work because the biometrics, the facial recognition, all of these effort has got to work. If it doesn't work, there's a problem. They cannot go go ahead. So, there's another official, maybe a coordinator, who is coming here to assist. Uh They say it's not rocket science, but it could be a rocket science sometimes when these things are failing.

[00:03:19]It's just got to work. And you need to see how this works. I promise you just that. And I'm going to show you what is how this works. So, that's a biometric feature, uh the facial recognition feature on the device, and it seems not to be recognizing the lady. So, she's got to clean her face, uh dab her face.

[00:03:39]Maybe she had a different hairstyle when she was captured. Or what exactly do you think the problem was?

[00:03:46]Why was it not recognizing her face?

[00:03:49]>> No, it could be that she has a lot of makeup on. So, if she has a lot of makeup on, she needs to go and wash the face, come back, then do the recapture and so capture her. It was not aligning before.

[00:04:00]>> So, you can hear you can hear the officials telling us maybe the reason why it wasn't really working. So, the lady is going ahead now. She's got a makeup different from when she was captured earlier on. And now, as soon as she goes and they cross-check her name across the register manually, maybe she will be allowed to go through the process. But, if you look at what is going on right here, the the ballot paper is right here.

[00:04:31]The ballot paper is being stamped and verified right here. And the official will have to append his signature.

[00:04:40]And so, the the finger is marked and getting ready to cast the ballot.

[00:04:48]And so, there she goes.

[00:04:50]There she goes.

[00:04:52]She gets the cue. And look at this lady right here.

[00:04:55]She gets to go behind to cast her ballot, to thumb print. And when that is done, it's secret open secret ballot system. And so, when that is done, she then comes here and drop it right >> [music] >> here. This is the end point of all the process where the ballot goes in. And that is the process on and on and on Apologies, man. And that's how they go on and on and on and on until the last person.

[00:05:29]The law is that until the last person gets through the process, this is not yet over. But, look, and Joker, this is what goes on around here. I just got to bring everyone closer to the process so you can see for yourself how this whole exercise pans out. It's a rigorous one. It's an interesting one. This is the essence of our democracy. Might be tedious, but we just get to go go through all of these for the sake of the people of this country.

[00:06:01]>> I always knew. You know, there's one question that always on my mind sometimes.

[00:06:06]Do the security officials themselves vote during general elections? I don't know. Well, I don't even know if you are able to vote yourself.

[00:06:15]>> Well, well, to be honest with you, um I've not had opportunity to vote uh for the last uh almost uh 16 17 years because a few times uh my my my registration area is not where I work, so uh on election day I'm always been on election duty as long as I can remember, so this has always been the problem. So, and the same thing with all these police officers. But, you know, part of what they're saying to review to review the law is that uh essential officers should be able to vote before the election so that they they the gap is too much. There's a lot of people who don't get to vote because they're on duty on election day.

[00:06:57]>> Well, let's let's hope that that gets done one of these days. Um thank you so much uh Shehu for for the work that you're doing, and we trust that you get So, you are one of the 3% that collected their PVCs in Ekiti. That's may not be the case in >> get to you.

[00:07:15]By the way, my PVC My PVC is still around somewhere in Ifako-Ijaye in Lagos.

[00:07:21]>> [laughter] >> Thank you, Shehu. We'll get back to you shortly.

[00:07:26]Okay, so um we'll take a short break now. There's uh something we need to bring to your awareness. Uh when we return, it's about something that usually should happen beyond fatherhood.

[00:07:40]Right back at you.

[00:07:42]>> Right back at you.

[00:07:43]>> [music] [music]