Atiku demands independent audit of BVAS ahead of 2027 elections
Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has called for an independent audit of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System ahead of the 2027 general elections, citing concerns over the technology used by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Atiku, the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, made the call in a statement issued by his media office on Tuesday, following reported failures during the August 1 mock accreditation exercise for the Osun State governorship election.
His concerns followed comments by Lawrence Bayode, INEC Director of Information and Communication Technology, who said during an interview on Arise Television on Monday that BVAS, introduced for Nigerian elections in 2021, currently operates on Android 10.
Atiku said Android 10 reached end-of-life in 2023 and no longer receives regular security updates or patches, arguing that the use of an outdated operating system for election technology could expose the system to security and operational risks.
He questioned why INEC had not upgraded the BVAS software ahead of the 2027 elections or used the series of off-cycle elections to test an updated version.
“Why INEC with its humongous budget cannot update the BVAS software long before the 2027 general elections or even before the series of off-season elections like the Osun State governorship election during which the updated version would have been test run,” Atiku said.
The ADC candidate warned that vulnerabilities in the system could affect voter accreditation and the integrity of election result files.
He alleged that hackers could potentially gain access to BVAS devices and manipulate cached voter logs or polling-unit result files before they are transmitted to INEC’s Result Viewing portal.
