INEC To Deploy Total Of 176, 846 BVAS For General Election, Says Extra 17,618 Will Be Provided As Backup

With less than 100 days to the general election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has revealed that it will be deploying a total of 176, 846 Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) across the federation for next year’s polls.

According to the commission, every registration area in the country would get two BVAS machines for accreditation, and another 17,618 BVAS machines would also be provided as a backup for the election.

Naija News reports that the commission’s National Commissioner and Chairman of, the Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye made the revelation on Monday in Abuja at the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship Alumni Association Annual Seminar 2022.

Okoye also disclosed that INEC’s data recovery centres would be upgraded and all its platforms enhanced before the elections in order to forestall the constant attacks the platform had received from hackers and political actors, noting that the commission was determined to conduct free and fair elections in 2023.

He furthered that INEC would continue to infuse technology into Nigeria’s electoral process to ensure free and fair elections.

The INEC national commissioner noted that “The commission is firm and fixed on its resolve to conduct free, fair, transparent and inclusive elections.

“The commission will continue to be open and transparent in its technological innovations because election business is public business and the public has a right to know what the commission is doing.

“INEC will continue to gradually infuse technology in the electoral process to enhance transparency and verifiability in voter authentication and result management. The level of technological development in the country and the state of infrastructure will invariably impact the technology the commission can deploy.

“In this regard, the commission will continue to make haste slowly as accuracy in result management is more important than the speed at which technology is introduced.

“We are confident that the BVAS and IReV will form an important pillar and component in the march towards an electoral process driven by technology to obviate malicious human interference in the electoral process.”