The Executive Director, Kimpact Development Initiative, Bukola Idowu, has commended the resilience of Osun voters and the turnout recorded during the state’s governorship election, saying translating the level of participation in the Osun state governorship election to the 2027 general elections would be a positive development.
“The lessons I took away were the resilience of the people and the voter turnout. Pre-election, it did not look like people would come out. Reports spoke about intimidation and inciting messages, but the people came out to the extent that voter turnout relative to PVC collection was 51%. That is the first time since 2014 we have had that kind of turnout. If we could translate that to 2027, that would be a very good thing,” he remarked.
Speaking on the role of technology in the just-concluded Osun governorship election, Idowu said the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) recorded an 85 per cent success rate, while the IReV portal enhanced transparency by allowing stakeholders to independently view, collate and verify results, but stressed that physical monitoring remained necessary because IReV is only a result-viewing portal and does not have the legal authority to conduct result collation.
“I would separate that technology into two parts: technology for accreditation and technology for result management. For accreditation, we are talking about BVAS. The data from our situation room showed BVAS worked at 85%, with about a 15% failure rate. While that is a pass mark, we should be aiming for 100%. When you have accreditation failure, people can get disenfranchised if it takes longer to accredit or replace devices. BVAS needs to work effectively, and they need to correct issues.
“Number two is the result viewing portal, IReV. The hero of that election was the IReV because people were able to tabulate and see results coming in. Tension rose when there was a delay. The physical copy was monitored because the electoral act has not given the power of collation to IReV.
“People need to go to the collation center and defend their vote; you cannot defend your vote on IReV because it is a viewing portal, not where collation takes place. But it added transparency so you can independently view, collate, and verify,” he added.
Looking ahead to the 2027 general elections, Idowu called for greater vigilance at collation centres at the ward, local government and state levels, as well as an independent audit into the interruption experienced on IReV.
“Moving into 2027, collation centers at the ward, local government, and state levels also need that vigilance and resilience. We need an independent audit to ask why there was a stop at some point. Anytime you have a competitive election, you always have this issue with IReV. We need to investigate that as we move into national elections with over 176,000 polling units,” he stressed.
On whether the Osun election could be regarded as free and credible, Idowu said the counting of ballots, accreditation and collation processes were good, free and fair. However, he noted that the pre-election environment, which recorded 81 documented cases of violence and reckless rhetoric, could not be separated from the overall electoral process.
“When you look at the counting of ballots, accreditation, and collation, it was good, free, and fair. But some stages lead to that. For instance, the pre-election environment had 81 documented cases of violence before the election, alongside reckless rhetoric. You cannot detach the pre-election environment from election day.
“Additionally, on election day, you had 30 Commissioners of Police, AIGs, DIGs, three National Commissioners, and nearly 30 RECs deployed to one state. Are we going to have that luxury in 2027? In 2027, those resources will be spread across all states. We need to get the process right so the system can run on its own. The responsibility falls on the institution. We must have institutions that run on their own, where loyalty is to the Constitution and the people of the country, not to an individual,” he concluded.
Favour Odima