Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will hold a mock accreditation exercise in Anambra State later this month to test the performance of its newly upgraded Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) before the November governorship election.
According to a statement issued on Saturday by Victoria Eta-Messi, INEC’s Director of Voter Education and Publicity, the exercise will take place on Saturday, 25 October, in selected polling units spread across the state’s three senatorial districts.
Eta-Messi said the test is intended to evaluate how efficiently the upgraded BVAS functions under real polling conditions, particularly its response time and ability to upload results to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal.
“The mock accreditation exercise will enable the Commission to test the BVAS, assess its response time, and evaluate the uploading of results on the IReV portal ahead of the governorship election,” she said.
INEC encouraged eligible voters in the chosen locations to take part in the trial, describing it as a crucial step in ensuring a smoother and more transparent election.
The BVAS device, first deployed in 2021, is designed to verify voters’ identities using both fingerprints and facial recognition. While the technology has improved Nigeria’s election process, it also faced criticism during the 2023 general elections due to technical glitches that delayed result uploads.
INEC said the upgrades were aimed at improving reliability and speed, assuring Nigerians that lessons from past challenges had been taken into account.
The Anambra governorship election is scheduled to take place in 8 November 2025.