Atiku Raises Concern over Plans to Use Alleged Outdated BVAS in Osun Guber Poll

Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has expressed concern over the potential use of outdated Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in the upcoming Osun State gubernatorial election. According to sources, the BVAS, which was first introduced into Nigerian elections in 2021, is currently running on Android version 10, which reached its end of life in 2023.

Atiku, speaking on Arise TV, pointed out that running election technology on an outdated operating system poses severe cyber and operational risks. He wondered why INEC, with its substantial budget, had not updated the BVAS software before the 2027 general election or any other off-season elections, where the updated version could be test-run.

Atiku alleged that the nonchalant attitude towards the BVAS issue may be a deliberate attempt to undermine the integrity of Nigeria's elections. He pointed out that outdated BVAS machines could allow criminal elements to bypass the BVAS application, gain root access to the device file system, and manipulate cached voter logs or polling unit result files before they are transmitted.

The former Vice President also warned that using an outdated biometric framework in BVAS could reduce its accuracy and resilience against spoofing methods. Atiku supported cybersecurity experts who argued that running critical national infrastructure, like BVAS, on an end-of-life operating system creates a broad attack surface, making it crucial to conduct an independent, comprehensive code and hardware audit of the BVAS devices.