A former member of the House of Representatives representing Akoko South East/Akoko South West, Ade Adeogun, on Saturday called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to upgrade its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The former lawmaker made this call after casting his vote at Unit 2, Ward 15, Okede Baptist Primary School, Oba Akoko, during the Ondo State governorship election.
He expressed concerns over the limitations of the current BVAS system.
According to Adeogun, “The challenge with INEC is that they need to upgrade the BVAS technology. Identity management has progressed beyond what BVAS is producing now. If you have a system that can’t operate when it’s a bit dark or when network connectivity is low, then you’re way behind the times.”
Adeogun emphasized the need for an update to the BVAS software before the 2027 elections, adding, “They need to work on that to speed up the process and make the system smoother.”
Addressing a specific issue in his unit, Adeogun mentioned the delay caused by malfunctioning BVAS equipment, which prevented many older voters from being accredited. He said, “The problem we had here is with BVAS, which caused delays in this unit, and a lot of older voters couldn’t be accredited. This caused a lot of frustration.”
He continued, “If you look at that woman sitting there now, she’s been here since morning and hasn’t been able to vote. Their cards are correct, everything is correct, but the system won’t capture them. They refused to leave because they couldn’t understand why they registered and couldn’t vote. I was persuading them, hoping they could try again before the close of voting to see if the system would work.”
Despite these challenges, Adeogun commended the overall conduct of voters and security personnel, describing the election process as generally peaceful.
