Ahead of the 2023 election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has responded to persons who circulated rumours that the commission had dumped the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).
It was reported that the Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to the Chairman of INEC, Rotimi Oyekanmi explained that the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has reiterated severally that there is no going back on the deployment of BVAS for the 2023 general election.
“If at this moment in 2022, we still have a presidential candidate of one of the 18 registered political parties, saying he needs assurances on the BVAS or he doesn’t know or appreciate its relevance to the 2023 general election, then something is terribly wrong somewhere,’’
BVAS is an electronic device designed to read Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and authenticate voters – using the voters’ fingerprints – in order to prove that they are eligible to vote at a particular polling unit.
Its usage entails either scanning the barcode/QR code on the PVC/Voter’s register or entering the last six digits of the Voter Identity Number or typing in the last name of the voter by the Assistant Presiding Officer (APO 1) to verify and authenticate the voter.