Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has raised concerns over the alleged use of an outdated operating system on the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), warning that it could expose Nigeria’s electoral process to cybersecurity and operational risks ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Atiku, the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), raised the concerns in a statement issued by his Media Office in Abuja on Tuesday.
The statement followed reported technical failures during the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) mock accreditation exercise in Osun State on August 1, 2026, as well as comments attributed to INEC’s Director of ICT, Dr Lawrence Bayode.
Bayode, in an interview, reportedly said the BVAS, which was introduced into Nigeria’s electoral process in 2021, currently operates on Android version 10.
Reacting, Atiku said Android 10 reached end-of-life status in 2023 and no longer receives regular security updates and patches.
He argued that operating critical election technology on an outdated system could expose BVAS to cybersecurity vulnerabilities and undermine the reliability of the electoral process.
Atiku questioned why INEC, despite its substantial budget, had not upgraded the BVAS operating system ahead of the 2027 elections or used upcoming off-cycle elections, including the Osun governorship election, to test an updated version.
He described INEC’s handling of the issue as “suspicious” and warned that any vulnerabilities in the system could affect the credibility of future elections.
According to him, weaknesses in an outdated operating system could potentially be exploited to gain unauthorised access to BVAS devices and compromise voter accreditation or polling unit result data before transmission.
The former Vice President also raised concerns about the transmission of polling unit results through public telecommunications networks to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal.
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He said outdated security and cryptographic components could increase the system’s exposure to cyber threats, including attempts to intercept, block or manipulate data transmitted between polling units and the result-viewing platform.
Atiku further expressed concerns about the biometric functions of the BVAS, which uses fingerprint and facial recognition technologies for voter accreditation.
He argued that reliance on outdated biometric software could affect the accuracy and resilience of the system, particularly against attempts to circumvent its verification mechanisms.
He also warned that software defects associated with legacy systems could result in application crashes during periods of heavy usage, potentially causing delays in voter accreditation.
Atiku said he supported calls by cybersecurity experts for an independent and comprehensive audit of the BVAS hardware and software ahead of the 2027 general elections.
He maintained that running critical national infrastructure on an end-of-life operating system could expand the system’s attack surface and expose the electoral process to avoidable risks.
The statement was signed by the Atiku Media Office in Abuja on August 11, 2026.
