A Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adio Afolayan, has described the operation of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for the conduct of the ongoing governorship election in Ekiti by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as excellent.

Mr Afolayan, also the Commissioner for Local Government Affairs in Ekiti, made the commendation in an interview at Efon-Alaaye, after casting his votes.

“Comparing INEC now to the previous elections, the arrangement is assumed excellent.

“So far, INEC arrangement is so superb and okay. Within five minutes, one is accredited, do the voting, unlike before you accredit, hours later you still queue to cast your vote,” Mr Afolayan said.

INEC adopted the machines in which accreditation and voting were done simultaneously in the Saturday governorship election.

Mr Afolayan, who voted at Ward 4, Unit 4 at Efon-Alaaye in Efon Local Government area rea of Ekiti, lauded the peaceful conduct of the electorate.

However, some voters in Ifaki-Ekiti said that the machines were not functioning well in many areas of the town.

They consequently called on INEC to intervene in the exercise, which they said would officially close at about 2:30 p.m.

At Omi-Oniyo Voting Unit, in Ifaki-Ekiti, the hometown of Segun Oni, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), out of the over 500 voters registered in the area, only two persons had been able to vote, as of 9:30 a.m.

An elderly woman, who spoke anonymously, said she had been in the queue since about 7:09 a.m. but has yet to be accredited, not to talk of voting.

The same scenario happened in some polling units in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital.

Meanwhile, Kemi Elebute-Halle, the governorship candidate of the Action Democratic Party (ADP), insisted that she was still in the race.

“Having come this far, it would be cowardly of me to back out.

“I’m set to win this election. In another 30 minutes, I will be joining my supporters to cast my vote,” she said.

(NAN)