Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has expressed concern over the alleged planned use of outdated Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) devices during Saturday’s governorship election in Osun State.
In a statement issued by his media office, Atiku said the challenges recorded during the August 1, 2026, mock accreditation exercise in Osun, combined with comments by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Director of ICT, Dr Lawrence Bayode, had exposed shortcomings in the election technology.
Bayode, speaking on Arise TV on Monday, disclosed that BVAS devices, first introduced into Nigeria’s elections in 2021, are currently running on Android version 10.
Atiku noted that what the INEC official did not mention is that Android 10 reached its end of life in 2023 and no longer receives updates or security patches.
He warned that running critical election technology on an outdated operating system poses severe cybersecurity and operational risks.
According to the former vice president, this vulnerability could allow criminal elements or hackers to bypass the BVAS application, gain root access to the device file system, and potentially alter cached voter logs or polling unit result files before they are transmitted.
He questioned why INEC, despite its substantial budget, had failed to update the BVAS software well ahead of the 2027 general elections or use off-season polls such as the Osun governorship election to test an upgraded version.
Atiku described the continued reliance on the outdated system as suspicious and a potential deliberate attempt to undermine the integrity of the country’s elections.
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