Political parties across Osun State have called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to urgently review and reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) ahead of the August 15 governorship election.

The parties made the calls in separate statements issued on Saturday.

The calls followed widespread glitches observed during a mock accreditation exercise on Saturday.

Sunday Tribune gathered that the BVAS machines developed technical faults across the designated polling units.

The exercise commenced as scheduled at about 8:00 a.m. in selected polling units across the state, with prospective voters arriving to participate in the mock accreditation designed to test the functionality of the BVAS ahead of the governorship poll.

However, reports from the various centres indicated that the BVAS machines stopped functioning at about 9:36 a.m. The devices reportedly failed to recognise the fingerprints, facial features and photographs of voters whose details were already contained in the voters’ register, forcing the exercise to a halt in the affected polling units.

Reacting to the disruption in a statement issued by the Osun State Chairman of the Accord party, Pastor Victor Akande, the party said the failures recorded were a serious red flag that must be addressed before the August 15 governorship election.

Accord proposed the constitution of a technical committee comprising representatives of contesting political parties to work with INEC in resolving the issues.

The statement also acknowledged that the INEC National Chairman, Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan, was present in Osun and witnessed the challenges firsthand.

“We believe this should eliminate any room for excuses or attempts to downplay the seriousness of the situation,” it said.

In his…