Yakubu: INEC will use BVAS to conduct mock voter accreditation before presidential election

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, has said the electoral umpire will carry out mock accreditation of voters before the general election, stating with the presidential poll on February 25.

Speaking on Tuesday at the Chatham House in the United Kingdom, the INEC boss stated that the mock accreditation would be done in selected polling units to test the integrity of the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS).

According to Yakubu, “We had issues with the BVAS in Anambra and the federal capital territory (FCT) when we deployed it in November 2021 and February 2022. We went back to the drawing board and we have found the solution.

“That is why in subsequent elections and Osun, you didn’t see those glitches. But I’m not going to say more about what we discovered and what we have done.

“We have the machines for the general election, but we don’t want to take chances. Each and every BVAS has been tested and confirmed functional. For the last two weeks, our officials were in all the states of the federation testing those machines.

“We’ll conduct mock accreditation exercise nationwide ahead of the election. We’ll test the integrity of these machines with real voters in select polling units. We did so in Ekiti and Osun; it was fantastic.”

Professor Yakubu further stated that INEC will make provision for more machines should any of them malfunction or experience glitches.

“We have technical support that will fix the machines in the unlikely event of any glitches.

“However, where it fails to function completely in a polling unit, from previous experience there were isolated polling units, the law has a remedy that the commission should re-mobilise and re-conduct elections in the affected polling units within 24 hours. So, we are really, really comfortable where we are;;, added the INEC chairman.