The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Joash Amupitan, has announced that the era of ghost voters and identity fraud in Nigerian elections is effectively over, crediting the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for this breakthrough.
Speaking at the 2025 Digital Nigeria conference in Abuja, the INEC boss declared the technology a “foolproof mechanism” that has become a cornerstone of the nation’s electoral integrity.
“The BVAS device has become our frontline defence against identity fraud, ensuring that only the rightful, eligible voter can be accredited at the polling unit,” Amupitan stated. He was represented by National Commissioner Mrs. May Agbamuche-Mbu. “With the biometric safeguards now in place, voter impersonation has been effectively eliminated from our electoral system.”
The chairman’s declaration positions the BVAS as the definitive solution to a problem that has plagued Nigerian elections for decades. He pointed to the recent Anambra State poll as evidence, where 6,879 deployed devices led to over 99% of results being uploaded to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal on election day.
“These outcomes confirm that the deployment of BVAS and IReV is no longer experimental but an entrenched part of Nigeria’s electoral architecture,” he told the audience. “The figure announced at the polling units is the same figure visible to the public. Technology has safeguarded the vote.”
However, Amupitan presented a candid assessment of the challenges that remain. While BVAS tackles voter accreditation, he identified poor network connectivity as the “logistical headache” hindering real-time result transmission from remote polling units.
“A tool like the BVAS is only as good as the network it runs on,” he admitted, highlighting the difficulty in covering 176,846 diverse polling units. The Commission said it is engaging with telecom regulators and exploring alternative technologies to bridge this gap.
Crucially, Amupitan credited the Electoral Act 2022 for giving the technology the necessary legal backing, transforming it from an administrative tool into a “statutorily protected pillar” of the process.
Despite the connectivity issues, the INEC chairman firmly shut the door on any return to manual accreditation, describing the old system as “vulnerable to human interference.”
“Our mission is simple. To ensure that every eligible voter is accurately verified, every vote is properly counted, and every result is transparently shared,” Amupitan concluded. “Technology has helped us secure these foundations of democracy.”
