2023 General Elections: INEC Assures Nigerians of Zero Hacking And Network Issues

Ahead of Nigeria’s 2023 general election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has assured Nigerians that would be no hacking and network issues.

This was disclosed by Dr. Lawrence Bayode, the deputy director of ICT, INEC while fielding questions on Channels television ahead of the election.

Dr. Bayode disclosed that the commission is aware of a possible attack on the system and has already put measures in place to repel any attack from hackers. He also gave the assurance that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) has been configured to avoid any form of network failure.

In his words,

“The commission is aware of hacking; we have done our best to protect our data and systems. Data at rest and data in transit are protected in case there is any successful cyber-attack, we will have a failover.”

He further reiterated that no citizen would be allowed to vote with their permanent voter’s card (PVC) and accreditation as provided in section 47 (1) of the electoral act, 2022.

With so many errors and breaches of data that have been recorded in previous elections in Nigeria, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) mandated that the 2023 general election will be technology-driven to avoid hacks and human errors, hence the introduction of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).

The BVAS device is designed to read permanent voters cards (PVC) and authenticate voters through a biometric verification mechanism, using both fingerprint and facial recognition of voters.

The device can also capture images of the polling unit result sheet (Form EC8A) and upload the image of the sheet on INEC’s election result viewing platform (IREV). The IREV is an online portal where results from polling units are uploaded, transmitted, and published.

Investors King understands that with the nature of BVAS, the uploaded polling units (PUs) results cannot be manipulated after INEC disclosed that the machine was not designed to edit the photographic results uploaded and sent to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IREV); and once sent cannot be recalled.

There have been a lot of conversations about the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and how effective it will be in aiding INEC to conduct a credible election.  Meanwhile, political analysts believe BVAS will be a game-changer in Nigeria’s electoral system because it is designed to eliminate all forms of electoral malpractice.