Reported by Ariajegbe Sylvia Esezobor
The Independent National Electoral Commission has declared that it is more than 80 per cent ready for the 2027 general elections, while issuing a stern warning to political parties, candidates and their agents that vote buying will attract arrest and prosecution under the Electoral Act 2026. The commission said its preparations had moved from the planning phase to full-scale execution, with nine of the 14 major statutory activities in its timetable already completed.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner in Anambra State, Dr Queen Elizabeth Agwu, disclosed the readiness assessment during a stakeholders' meeting in Awka on Friday, October 9, 2026. "We have been able to procure about 5,720 BVAS and some reserve machines for the 5,720 polling units in the state," Agwu said. "We have done an infrastructure audit to ensure the smoothness of the 2027 polls." She disclosed that approximately 22,280 ad hoc staff would be deployed for the exercise and that online training for the personnel would commence the following week. The commission had also upgraded its Information and Communications Technology equipment and relocated its offices from local government secretariats to new locations to curb electoral malpractice. "There will be no glitch in this one. There will be no preference for anyone. The candidate who scores the goal will be the winner," Agwu said.
The warning against vote buying was delivered at the same meeting and echoed across multiple engagements by the commission's national leadership. Agwu was unequivocal about the role political parties play in the practice. "It is not INEC that engages in vote buying, and it is not done by the police or other organisations, but by political parties. All parties are engaged in vote buying and at the end you blame INEC and want us to stop it when you are the ones doing it," she said. She urged parties to use campaign funds to tell the people what they would do rather than to purchase votes. "The money you will use to buy votes, why not give it to the people during election campaigns and tell them what you will do for them. This is the time to campaign." She warned that the commission would prosecute anyone who offered money to INEC staff to influence the electoral process. "We have warned our staff not to take money from politicians and if we catch politicians who are luring our staff for result sheets or to rig elections, we will prosecute you," she said.
At the national level, INEC Chairman Professor Joash Amupitan said the commission had established a joint financial monitoring mechanism with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit to track illegal campaign expenditure and curb the influence of money on the electoral process. "Joint financial monitoring teams will be deployed to track illegal campaign spending and conduct undercover surveillance at polling units nationwide," Amupitan said. He warned that attempts to trade cash or material gifts for votes would face immediate arrest and prosecution under the Electoral Act 2026. "Elections must be decided by the conviction of the voter, not the depth of a candidate's pocket," he said.
The commission's technological preparations form a central component of its readiness strategy. INEC has acquired 57,000 new Bimodal Voter Accreditation System machines, with software hardening, battery optimisation and biometric calibration completed to strengthen accreditation and prevent manipulation. A six-day technology stress test is scheduled from October 23 to 28, 2026, followed by a nationwide mock accreditation exercise in November to evaluate the readiness of critical election technologies. An Artificial Intelligence Division has been established to support auditing and anomaly detection, with all AI deployments subject to human oversight. The commission has also introduced an enhanced electronic EC8A form designed to digitise and cryptographically authenticate polling unit results before their upload to the INEC Result Viewing portal.
The voter register has risen to more than 103 million following the completion of the three-phase Continuous Voter Registration exercise, which produced 10,772,421 new registrants. The nationwide display of the register for claims and objections began on October 9 and runs until October 15, 2026, while the collection of Permanent Voter Cards also commenced on October 9 at Registration Area centres, with collection moving to local government offices after October 15. The commission has emphasised that PVC collection is strictly personal and not by proxy, and that no payment is required.
The logistics of the 2027 elections are considerable. INEC will deploy personnel and materials across 176,846 polling units located within 8,838 registration areas. It requires more than 100,000 vehicles and approximately 4,000 boats to execute its nationwide logistics plan. Sensitive election materials will be moved from the vaults of the Central Bank of Nigeria to local government areas 72 hours before election day, while voting will commence nationwide at 7:30 a.m. The commission will deploy 707,384 ad hoc personnel on each day of voting, bringing the total to 1,414,768 for the two election days, with a significant proportion drawn from members of the National Youth Service Corps.
The political context of the commission's preparations is charged. The 2027 general elections are scheduled for January 16, with the governorship and state assembly elections following on February 6. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is seeking a second term on the All Progressives Congress platform, while former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the African Democratic Congress, former Anambra Governor Peter Obi of the Nigeria Democratic Congress and Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde of the Allied Peoples Movement are among the major challengers. The National Peace Committee has recorded 60 election-related incidents within one month, including political violence, intimidation, threats and misinformation, and has warned political actors against inflammatory campaigns.
For Nigerian voters, the commission's readiness claims and its warnings against vote buying represent both a promise and a test. The 2023 presidential election's failure to timeously upload polling unit results to the IReV portal remains a source of public mistrust, and the commission's ability to deliver on its commitments will determine whether the 2027 elections are accepted as credible. As Amupitan put it, the commission has no preferred candidate and will not allow political competition to devolve into violence, intimidation or inflammatory rhetoric. The coming months will determine whether the preparations translate into an election that Nigerians can trust.
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