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Govt To Replace BVN With NIN

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Kidnapped Son Of Pantami Regains Freedom

The Federal Government disclosed today that arrangements are ongoing to replace the Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) with the National Identity Numbers (NIN).

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy Dr Isa Pantami, who disclosed this to newsmen immediately after a tour of telecoms operators and NIN licensees in Abuja, said President Muhammadu Buhari has been briefed on the on-going NIN registrations.

Pantami said the President was happy with the conduct of the exercise so far, adding that he had also briefed the National Economic Sustainability Committee headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on the imperative of replacing BVN with NIN.

Pantami maintained that while BVN was only for accounts holders with various banks, the National Identity Numbers are for all Nigerians irrespective of their social status.

READ ALSO; Lagos Demolishes Banana Estate Structures Without Building Permits

To verify the smooth registration of Nigerians, the minister visited the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) registration Centre in Gwarinpa, the Zonal Headquarters of MTN, Glo Mobile and Airtel in Maitama as well as a Private operator, OMNL, Nigeria.

Followed by the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof Garba Danbatta; Director-General General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa and Chief Executive Officer of NIMC, Engr Aliyu Aziz, the Minister said he was impressed by the strict adherence to COVID-19 protocols at all the registration centres.

On the hiccups encountered by those with the BVN data trying to link it with NIN data, Pantami said:” The BVN records may not be 100 percent the same with NIN but what is most important is that the NIN is the primary identity of each and every citizen, including legal residents.

“BVN is a policy of a bank and has not been established by law, NIN is the only mandatory number and the primary identification of our citizens and every other identification is secondary.

“The NIMC Act 2007 provides that all our citizens must be enrolled and the law gives them 60 days to enroll from the time the law was enacted and a maximum of 180 days and all permanent residents in the country and legal residents that have to stay here for a minimum of 24 months must be enrolled.

“So, this is the primary identification of all and all other data bases are supposed to utilize this and not for NIN to utilize the BVN because it is the primary one.

“We discussed with the CBN governor today on how to ensure that all our citizens with BVN will immediately be provided with the NIN. We are working on that but facilitating the process lies on CBN to make it much easier for our people.”

Asked to clarify government position on the BVN replacement with NIN, Pantami said:” I made a presentation to National Economic Sustainability Committee and I drew the attention of CBN governor that we need to replace BVN with NIN because the BVN is a bank policy while NIN is a law.

“Because it has been established by law so the strength of the law wherever you go is not the same with a policy of one institution.

“Also, BVN is only applicable to those who have bank accounts but NIN is for every citizen and legal residents in the country. BVN is our secondary database while NIN and the database is the primary one in the country that each and every institution should make reference to NIMC.”

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BREAKING: I Won’t Resign, Election Free, Fair – INEC Chairman

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We're Ready To Resume Continuous Voter Registration - INEC
INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has rejected the call by the Labour Party (LP), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the African Democratic Congress (ADC) for the INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to resign.

The commission also said the allegation by Senator Dino Melaye that the INEC chairman allocated scores to political parties during the ongoing collation of 2023 presidential election results, was unfounded and irresponsible.

The three opposition parties had earlier on Tuesday passed a vote of no confidence in the INEC chairman and even called for his resignation.

But, reacting to the call in a statement made available to journalists in Abuja on Tuesday, the chief press secretary to the INEC chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, said contrary to the insinuations by the political parties, election results emanating from the States of the Federation were free, fair and credible.

He said, “There are laid down procedures for aggrieved parties or candidates to follow when they are dissatisfied about the outcome of an election

“Such procedures do not include calling on the INEC Chairman to resign or for the election to be cancelled.

“To be sure, aggrieved parties are free to approach the courts to ventilate their concerns and wait for the matter to be resolved. Making inciting comments capable of causing violence or unrest is unacceptable.”

He noted that the 2023 general election processes were at their final stages of completion.

“It is only fair for aggrieved parties to allow the conclusion of the process and approach the courts with their evidence to pursue their cases,” he added.

 

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BREAKING: PDP, LP, ADC Demand Fresh Election, Resignation Of INEC Chairman

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Following allegations of rigging, three political parties (Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Labour Party, LP, and African Democratic Congress, ADC) on Tuesday demanded a fresh election.

The aggrieved political parties alleged that the February 25 presidential election has been “irretrievably compromised”.

According to them, the refusal of the INEC chairman to respect the upload of results electronically as stipulated by Section 60 of the Electoral Act 2022 is unacceptable.

LP National Chairman, Julius Abure; the PDP National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu; as well as their ADC counterpart, Ralph Nwosu, made this known at a joint press conference in Abuja on Tuesday.

They alleged that Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections were manipulated by officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) at polling units by their failure to upload results electronically on the commission’s Results Viewing Portal (IReV).

Abure, who spoke on behalf of the LP, PDP and the ADC, said, “This election is not free and far from being fair”, adding that there are “ongoing cancellation of results from areas of strength of the opposition parties”.

They declared a vote of no confidence in INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, and asked him to immediately step aside for an unbiased person to take over and conduct a fresh election.

The LP, PDP and ADC said the deliberate refusal of the INEC chairman to respect the upload of results electronically as stipulated by Section 60 of the Electoral Act 2022 is unacceptable.

The three parties said the result so far by INEC showed “monumental disparities” between what the party agents signed and what INEC officials announced in Abuja.

They said the manual transmission of results compromised the integrity of the election process.

Also, Ayu said the INEC should not turn himself to a “dictator” and demanded that he step aside for another person to take over.

The agents of the PDP and the LP stormed out of the National Collation Centre for the presidential election results at the International Conference Centre in Abuja on Monday.

A member of the 8th National Assembly from Kogi West Senatorial District, Dino Melaye; and a former governor of Imo State, Emeka Ihedioha; an agent of the Labour Party, amongst others staged a walkout on the INEC chairman over dissatisfaction on the process of the collation of results from state collation officers for the presidential election (SCOPs).

The drama ensued around 4:30pm on Monday at the resumed collation exercise of the February 25 presidential election results for the second day.

Melaye, Ihedioha, as well as the agents of the Labour Party and others, had complained that the results presented by INEC SCOPs weren’t uploaded on IReV as repeatedly promised by the electoral umpire before the February 25 presidential poll.

Melaye argued strongly that without the upload of results electronically on IReV, this year’s election was not in any way different from the manual transmission of results done in 2015.

 

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Oyetola’s Victory Threatened As INEC Opens Up On Osun Guber Poll

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Oyetola Stops Prosecution Of Attackers Of APC Secretariat

The victory of  Adegboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the Osun State Election Petition Tribunal is being threatened with fresh revelations by a former Director of Voter Education and Publicity of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi..

READ ALSO:Tribunal Sacks Adeleke, Declares Oyetola Osun Governor

Thetribunal judgment sacked Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party as the winner of the 2022 governorship election in the state.

The tribunal had on Friday ruled and nullified the election of Adeleke and directed INEC to withdraw his certificate of return and issue a new one to Adegboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress.

READ ALSO:Oyetola Left Behind Over N40b Debts – Adeleke

But during an appearance on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily on Monday, Osaze-Uzzi said the discrepancy in the 2022 Osun State governorship election, as it related to the BVAS, was owing to the fact that the APC obtained an incomplete report upon which the judgement was based.

“The second member [of the tribunal] – the Honourable Justice who dissented from his two colleagues – said, ‘I would rather use the primary source of this information, and the primary source of this data is actually the machine itself.

“lt is basically a computer. So, rather than go to the server where it transmitted data, I would use the printout from the machine itself,” he said.

He added: “The machines were tendered, so were the reports from the server, and there ought not to have been a discrepancy, but somewhere along the line, not all the data had been transmitted at the time the APC obtained the certified copy of the initial server report.”

“It was BVAS that exposed that as it were, and the fact that the BVAS report was relied on. But we have to be careful; which of the BVAS reports was relied on? Was it what was transmitted to the server – to the backend – or was it the BVAS itself?”, he further stated.e

He said there was a need to break the verdict of the tribunal, adding that the majority of the tribunal members – “the chairman and the second member” – relied on the initial report and the initial report of the backend, duly certified by INEC.

Osaze-Uzzi explained that the APC obtained a certified copy of the initial server report while the remaining data was transmitted by the BVAS hardware.

“It was downloaded from the server [after it was] transmitted. But a couple of days later – INEC used the word ‘synchronised’, I’m not too sure I like that word, but – you synchronise it and say, ‘Have all the results been transmitted – has all data been transmitted from the machine, BVAS itself, to the server?’

“The machine is a physical one and then it transmits to a physical one. It now went, checked and said, ‘There’s a problem here.’ The BVAS report now downloaded itself, [we] now brought it out and examined each BVAS machine and now found out that no, some data was not transmitted to the server,” the ex-INEC director said.

Osaze-Uzzi, however, encouraged stakeholders to be optimistic about the use of BVAS as it exposed the over-voting in the election as ruled by the tribunal, describing the judgement as a validation of the role BVAS has played in enhancing the electoral process.

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