By Matthew Tabe
In a bid to ensure a credible election in 2023, two cyber security experts, Hanniel Jafarau and Hon Michael Peter, have called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to address issues relating to use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in rural areas where there is oftentimes poor network to transmit election results to the server, among other sundry issues.
Speaking during a Twitter space organised by the Quest Times on Tuesday, Jafarau said “the INEC statement regarding ruling out the possibility of hacking the BVAS can be viewed in two dimensions.
“As a professional, I think they made that statement on the basis of ignorance where they don’t know how cyber security works and another standpoint is on a deterrent strategy meaning that they know exactly what they are saying by giving assurance.
“For me, there are systems that can be attacked and those that can’t be attacked. There’s no system that can’t be hacked but INEC is just saying it.”
According to him, what is happening is fine from an administrative standpoint, but looking at it from a professional angle, there are lots of things that can be amended.
He argued that the introduction of BVAS in previous and next elections will be used to rate INEC.
“I’m looking at it from the point that the result is changed and the public is seeing the fake one in the court. There are still loopholes in the BVAS and INEC should look at this,” he added.
On his part, Honourable Michael Peter, a cyber security expert and politician, while sharing his experiences, disagreed that INEC is acting on ignorance.
He emphasized that the introduction of the BVAS will give the elections more credibility in terms of checkmating the genuine ownership of the PVC in terms of accreditation.
He said “it’s the reason why INEC introduced BVAS to bring credibility to the elections. The use of technology became important since 2011 when we used the card readers.
“I believe in technology. The technical guys are behind the system, there’s assurance that credibility is built into the system. BVAS has been used in Delta State, Anambra, Osun and Ekiti elections and we have recorded wins going by post-election legal cases.
“With the deployment of BVAS..in the case of Osun, both PDP and APC traded words regarding the BVAS. What we’re seeing is INEC coordination using this BVAS, there’s improvement and the BVAS is working towards beating politicians to their game.”
He added that INEC needs to train her staff to familiarize themselves with these gadgets in terms of usage and to ensure effective network in various localities to transmit the results as recorded on the election result sheets.
He pointed out that there are still gaps in terms of training and functionality of the technology.
“With the BVAS, INEC is saying we’re going to verify you using the fingerprint or face to get your data. Result transmission at the polling units will go centrally to the data base. ECA form is equally used to upload it into the INEC server,” he said.
He stressed that the issue of proper coordination must be addressed by INEC before the elections commence.