The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has disclosed its plans to carry out a mock accreditation exercise on Tuesday, 4th February, 2022, to test run the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, ahead of the 2023 general elections.

The Chairman of the commission, Mahmoud Yakubu, in his address to the 36 resident electoral commissioners, on Friday 27th, January 2023, appealed to eligible voters, who have their permanent voter cards to partake in the exercise. The mock exercise will be carried out in 436 polling units across the country. He further added that that the 436 BVAS that would be used in the exercise will be reconfigured before they are deployed for usage for the general elections.

He said: ‘’as you are already aware, the commission has taken the delivery of the Bimodal Verification systems, BVAS, machines for the election. We have also dutifully tested each machine in our offices nationwide to ensure its functionality. The next step is to conduct field tests with actual voters.”

The mock accreditation will hold on Saturday 4th February, 2023 in 436 polling units across the nation. Twelve polling units have been designated in each state of the federation and four in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.

The chairman of the commission gave updates on the logistics for the forthcoming elections, stating that adequate provisions have been made for both sensitive and non-sensitive electoral materials. He urged members of the public who took part in the continuous voter registration exercise to collect their Permanent Voter Card, PVC before the expiration of the deadline date.

Story: Hauwa Mohammed

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