The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is preparing for the Anambra State governorship election on November 8, 2025. As part of the process, the commission is set to deploy over 7,000 Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for next month’s exercise.

Per PunchNews report, the electoral machines will be distributed across 5,729 polling units in the state. Also, plans are in place to conduct a mock accreditation and test run of both BVAS and real-time uploading of results to the INEC Result Viewing portal (IReV) on October 25. 

In addition, the trial will test the functionality of the devices and look to place the machines at their best for the electoral exercise.

As revealed by the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr Queen Elizabeth Agwu, about 2.5 million registered voters and 16 political parties are set to participate in the exercise. Providing more information, the REC, who spoke at the Situation Room Dialogue Session/Strategy meeting on Anambra state 2025 Governorship Election held in Abuja, said 140,000 of the 2.5 million are new voters. 

INEC also pledged its readiness for the election.

The commission’s Acting Chairman, May Agbamuche-Mbu, stated during its Tuesday meeting in Abuja that the commission is ready to conduct a smooth election in Anambra State. She mentioned that all non-sensitive materials have been deployed while vote sensitisation is ongoing. 

“The commission has been working assiduously and making arrangements for the successful conduct of the Anambra State governorship election and has had several engagements with the security agencies at national, state and local government levels,” she added.

While the commission has faced tough times in the past in ensuring the devices perform to people’s expectations, the race is still on for INEC to meet those set standards. And the Anambra governorship election presents another chance to prove readiness for the 2027 general elections.

Also Read: With 4.2m online voters pre-registrations, do Nigerian youths still trust INEC?.

BVAS and IReV: INEC looking to correct old stories 

The BVAS is used to verify a voter’s identity using their fingerprints or facial recognition. This ensures the voter is the legitimate owner of their Permanent Voter Card (PVC) and is registered to vote at that specific polling unit. It’s also used to snap polling units’ results for uploading on the IReV portal.

While BVAS and IReV continue to be concerning issues for Nigerians, INEC continues to reassure its integrity and ability to organise a free and fair election. The IReV portal, meant to serve as a real-time result viewing platform for voters, crashed during the 2023 general election.

In addition, a couple of reported cases have raised concerns over the BVAS’s ability to function properly. In a series of cases, the device had faced technical glitches by failing to accredit voters, thereby causing irregularities and raising questions about the final election results. 

During the by-election held in August across some local governments in Nigeria, the Edo State Governor, Monday Okpebholo, expressed concerns over BVAS’s slow performance. While casting his vote for the Edo Central Senatorial District by-election, he noted that the machines are causing electoral delay.

“Well, I just voted. You can see the frustration. The BVAS is just too slow. It takes too long before you can get accredited. I think INEC needs to look into this,” he said.

Meanwhile, the REC insisted that BVAS had not posed a problem during elections in Anambra. 

Speaking on preparations for the upcoming election, Agwu said every arrangement had been made to have a peaceful and orderly election in Anambra state. She added that every personnel expected to play a role during the election has been trained.

In furtherance of its preparation, the REC shared the idea of having some BVAS as a reserve to take care of any unforeseen incidents. She shared that this is part of the plan to organise a credible election.

Recap 

• Over 7,000 BVAS to be deployed for the Anambra election, which will be held on November 8.
• Test run of BVAS and real-time upload on IReV portal set for Oct 25. 
• Out of the 2.5 million registered voters set for the election, 140,000 are new voters.
• INEC aims to have a glitch-free election and make a statement of its readiness for the 2027 general elections.
• Some BVAS machines will be set aside as reserves in case of any malfunction or under deployment in polling units.

Aside from the Anambra polls, INEC is preparing for the FCT Area Council elections slated for February 21, 2026, and the governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun scheduled for June 20 and August 8, 2026, respectively.