Yiaga Africa has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct a comprehensive technical audit of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) following malfunctions recorded during Saturday’s Osun governorship election.
The civil society organisation said the review should determine what caused the failures and help INEC strengthen the testing, maintenance and technical support systems for BVAS ahead of the 2027 general election.
In a statement released on Sunday, August 16, on its assessment of the election process and results, Yiaga Africa said it deployed 300 stationary observers and 32 mobile observers across all 30 local government areas in the state under its Process and Results Verification for Transparency (PRVT) methodology.
Its assessment was based on reports from 289 of the 300 sampled polling units, representing 96 percent of the sample.
Yiaga said BVAS was available at all the polling units observed and worked properly in 80 percent of them. The remaining 20 percent experienced technical problems, although the issues were eventually resolved.
“However, in 20% of polling units, the BVAS malfunctioned, and it was fixed,” the organisation said.
While the failures did not occur at a level that threatened the overall credibility of the election, Yiaga said they remained significant, particularly because similar concerns had emerged during INEC’s mock accreditation exercise.
The organisation noted that elderly voters were among those affected by problems with biometric and facial authentication.
According to the findings, 11 percent of sampled polling units recorded instances where voters with successfully verified Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) were nevertheless unable to complete accreditation because BVAS could not authenticate their fingerprints or facial biometrics.
Downloadable PVCs Also Raise Concerns
Yiaga Africa also examined the use of downloadable PVCs, an option provided under the Electoral Act 2026.
The organisation said voters presented downloadable copies of their PVCs in 23 percent of the sampled polling units, with most of those voters successfully accredited.
However, accreditation was denied to some voters using the digital cards in seven percent of polling units where downloadable PVCs were presented.
Yiaga said the experience highlighted the need for INEC to provide clear and uniform instructions to polling officials on the acceptance and use of downloadable PVCs.
The organisation also commended INEC for largely meeting its deployment timelines for personnel and election materials despite the late court-ordered addition of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate.
The inclusion of the SDP candidate required INEC to reproduce ballot papers and result sheets shortly before the election.
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Yiaga’s observers found that 48 percent of sampled polling units had started accreditation and voting by 8:30am, with the figure rising to 96 percent by 9:30am.
IReV Upload Delays
The organisation, however, raised concerns about the performance of INEC’s Result Viewing (IReV) portal during the collation process.
According to Yiaga, uploads stalled between 8:48pm and 10pm, affecting 3,292 polling-unit results. At the point of the interruption, 471 results were still outstanding before transmission resumed at about 11:50pm.
“This prolonged interruption requires a clear explanation from INEC. Sustaining public confidence in IReV requires not only timely and complete uploads but also proactive disclosure whenever delays occur,” Yiaga Africa said.
The organisation maintained that electronic transmission and publication of polling-unit results remained an important transparency safeguard.
Its observers reported that presiding officers transmitted Form EC8A through BVAS in 85 percent of the sampled polling units.
Yiaga said its findings showed that INEC could achieve a strong operational standard when elections were adequately funded, resourced and closely monitored.
It urged the commission to apply the lessons from Osun to its preparations for the 2027 elections, particularly by investigating and publicly explaining biometric authentication failures and outlining measures to prevent similar problems.
“INEC should publish the causes of the biometric authentication failures recorded during accreditation, together with the remedial measures to be applied in 2027,” Yiaga Africa added.
“INEC should issue binding, uniform guidance to presiding officers on the acceptance of downloadable PVCs and usage for voter accreditation.”
The organisation said addressing these issues before 2027 would be important to preventing avoidable delays, protecting voters from disenfranchisement and maintaining public confidence in Nigeria’s electoral technology.