ADC Presidential Candidate Atiku Abubakar has raised concerns over the use of an outdated Android operating system on the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), warning that it could pose serious cybersecurity and operational risks ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Atiku, through his Media Office on X said the August 1, 2026 mock accreditation failures in Osun State and the recent disclosure by the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) Director of ICT, Dr Lawrence Bayode, had exposed vulnerabilities surrounding the technology deployed for elections.
Bayode, speaking on Arise News on Monday, disclosed that BVAS, first introduced into Nigeria’s electoral process in 2021, currently runs on Android version 10.
However, Atiku said Android 10 reached its end of life in 2023 and no longer receives regular updates or security patches, describing the continued use of the operating system for critical electoral infrastructure as a major concern.
Atiku questioned why INEC, despite its substantial budget, had not upgraded the BVAS software ahead of the 2027 elections or used upcoming off-cycle elections, including the Osun governorship election, to test an updated system.
He said the continued use of outdated technology was suspicious and could undermine public confidence in the integrity of Nigeria’s elections.
According to Atiku, vulnerabilities in the operating system could potentially enable criminal elements or hackers to bypass the BVAS application, gain access to the device’s file system and manipulate cached voter accreditation logs or polling-unit result files before transmission.
He also raised concerns about the transmission of polling-unit results over public telecommunications networks to INEC’s Result Viewing Portal, IReV.
Atiku warned that outdated cryptographic foundations could increase the risk of man-in-the-middle attacks, potentially allowing sophisticated attackers to intercept, block or manipulate data transmitted between polling units and the electoral commission.
He further expressed concern about BVAS’s biometric functions, noting that the system handles fingerprint and facial recognition.
He argued that an outdated biometric framework could reduce the system’s accuracy and resilience against spoofing techniques, including attempts to bypass fingerprint and facial recognition checks.
Atiku also warned that bugs or memory leaks associated with legacy software frameworks could cause the BVAS application to crash during peak voting periods, potentially resulting in technical glitches and delays in voter accreditation.
The former Vice President said the concerns were consistent with those raised by cybersecurity experts, who had warned that operating critical national infrastructure on an end-of-life operating system creates a broad attack surface.
He therefore called for an independent and comprehensive audit of the BVAS devices, covering both their software and hardware, to identify vulnerabilities and strengthen the integrity of Nigeria’s electoral technology before the 2027 polls.
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