Photo: Naija Times
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has begun configuring its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines ahead of the 2027 general elections, the commission has confirmed.
The Chairman of INEC's Information and Voter Education Committee, Haruna Mohammed, told Sunday PUNCH that the early start was necessary because of the time the configuration process takes.
- BVAS configuration for the 2027 elections is already under way
- Nigerian Air Force jets are deploying non-sensitive materials to states
- Presidential and National Assembly elections hold on January 16, 2027; governorship and state assembly elections follow on February 6, 2027
Why INEC is configuring BVAS machines this early
"The BVAS are already being configured. It takes a while to configure them, so we have to start early," Mohammed said.
He added that the distribution of non-sensitive election materials was already under way across the country, with the Nigerian Air Force assisting with logistics.
"The distribution of the non-sensitive materials for the 2027 election is already on. As we speak, Air Force jets are currently deploying materials to states," he said.
INEC's wider readiness programme for 2027
The configuration work sits inside a broader readiness programme. INEC has fixed November 28, 2026 for a nationwide mock accreditation and voting exercise to test upgrades to the BVAS and to electronic results transmission.
National Commissioner Professor Rhoda Gumus has said the commission has completed nine scheduled activities on its timetable, conducted readiness assessments across the six geopolitical zones, and completed the mass production of Permanent Voter Cards.
The commission has also procured additional BVAS machines and cut the maximum number of registered voters assigned to each device from 1,250 to 850, so that larger polling units receive multiple devices.
What happens next
The mock exercise on November 28 will be the first public test of the upgraded systems, two months before the presidential poll.
Political parties and observer groups are expected to watch the exercise closely, after the glitches that trailed BVAS accreditation and results transmission in the 2023 elections.
Credit: Punch, reporting INEC's Haruna Mohammed and Professor Rhoda Gumus, November 2026.
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