Adebayo Adenrele
Kimpact Development Initiative (KDI) has raised concerns over operational delays and below-par performance of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in the ongoing 2026 Ekiti State governorship election, despite describing the overall electoral process as generally peaceful and orderly.
In its mid-election day statement released on Saturday and signed by Bukola Idowu in Ado-Ekiti, the civil society organisation said its observations showed that while the integrity of election materials remained high and most polling units commenced voting within acceptable timelines, significant delays were recorded in the arrival of election officials and the opening of polls in some parts of the state.
He said the report was based on verified reports from the organisation’s Election Day Data Room (EDDR), which monitored electoral activities across the 177 wards in the state’s 16 local government areas.
According to KDI, data from 384 observation locations showed that only 52.3 per cent of polling units recorded early or on-time arrival of election officials, while 47.7 per cent experienced late arrivals, measured against the official benchmark of 7:30 a.m.
The organisation identified Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti West, Ekiti East, Ikere and Ikole as the local government areas with the highest concentration of delayed arrivals.
The statement read in part, “Contrary to conventional assumptions that election logistics challenges are primarily associated with remote communities, some of the highest levels of delayed arrival occurred in relatively urbanised and administratively accessible LGAs such as Ado-Ekiti and Ikere.
“The principal operational challenge was not the availability of materials but their timely deployment and distribution.
“At this stage, our observations suggest that the election environment remained generally peaceful across observed locations.
“The Ekiti figures therefore suggest a reduction in operational performance relative to recent electoral experience.
“The issue is not that BVAS failed across the state. Rather, the technology appears to have performed below the standard established in previous off-cycle governorship elections.
“This unevenness of voter experience represents an important dimension of election quality.
“Electoral integrity is strengthened not only when elections are peaceful and transparent but also when citizens across different communities experience comparable levels of administrative efficiency and access.
“The evidence suggests that the principal challenge facing election administration in Ekiti has not been the occurrence of isolated major disruptions but the cumulative impact of multiple smaller operational constraints across different parts of the state”.
