“Reconfiguration Of BVAS Won’t Delete Previous Data” - Tech Expert

 

Mixed reactions have continued to trail the ruling of the Court of Appeal in Abuja which gave the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the go ahead to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).

So many Nigerians took to their social media handles to bash the appellate court over its ruling.

Nigerians expressed worry that the information in the BVAS will be lost in the process, which will affect that evidence for the case already in court, challenging the electoral conduct and the declaration of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as president-elect.

Reacting to the fears expressed by many Nigerians, a tech expert, Okoro Onyekachi-Emmanuel said there is nothing wrong with INEC reconfiguring the BVAS.

Onyekachi-Emmanuel, who is the Executive Coordinator of Media Awareness and Justice Initiative, told reporters in an interview that reconfiguring the BVAS does not mean changing the information on the device.

He said the BVAS is just a channel to send information to the INEC server.

Onyekachi-Emmanuel, however, said it is uncertain whether the Certified True Copies that INEC would hand over to political parties was the same copy in the database of the electoral umpire.

“They are actually correct when they say they need to reconfigure the BVAS. Because the BVAS was reconfigured for the presidential election.

“Reconfiguration does not mean changing of the information in the BVAS. The BVAS is just a channel to put information to the server. So, if they are reconfiguring the BVAS, it doesn’t mean the information in the server has been tampered with.

“However the reconfiguration of that channel should be done with the availability of the date on the backend to be given to all the parties involved, which they are planning to give the Certified True Copies to the various parties involved.

“Whether the Certified True Copy is the same CTC that is on the database, or it is another one, is a different discussion,” he said.

On the postponement of the governorship election, Onyekachi-Emmanuel said it is not a bad idea, saying INEC may be trying to redeem their image by making corrections in areas they erred.

He, however, did not rule out the possibility of the INEC server having a system crash.