Editorial

In about nine months time, Nigerians will be going to the polls to elect their next set of leaders – from the President to the National Assembly members and from State Governors to members of the various State Houses of Assembly. The two sets of elections are slated to hold on January 16 and February 6,2027,for President/National Assembly members and Governors/State Houses of Assembly members, respectively.

For Nigerians, that is both a long time and no time at all. Long enough for reform. Short enough for old habits to repeat themselves. The Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) will again carry the weight of public trust.

After the disputes of 2023 and the off-cycle governorship polls in Edo, Ondo, and Anambra, the question is not whether INEC can hold an election. The question is whether it can hold one that Nigerians believe in.

Credibility has two parts: process and perception. On process, INEC’s baseline is stronger than 2015. The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System has reduced over-voting. Electronic transmission of results from polling units, mandated by the 2022 Electoral Act, limits the midnight arithmetic that once happened at collation centers. Despite these, technology is only as credible as its operators and the rules around it. When the IReV portal failed to upload presidential results in real time in 2023, the legal explanation did not cure the political damage.

Perception is where INEC bleeds most. The Commission is not a political party, but it is judged like one. Every Resident Electoral Commissioner(REC)is appointed by the Presidency, so every logistic failure in a stronghold of the opposition, every delayed response to a viral video, becomes evidence in the court of public opinion. The call by the African Democratic Congress (ADC )for INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan to resign over alleged partisanship shows how thin the ice is. INEC rejected the demand, citing Section 157 of the Constitution. Legally correct ; politically tone-deaf.

Preparedness,therefore, must start with neutrality that looks like neutrality. Appointments of RECs and national commissioners should go through open screening with civil society and the National Assembly asking hard questions on record. Any nominee with partisan footprints within five years should be disqualified, not defended. INEC can not control who the President nominates, but it can set and publish stricter recusal rules and enforce them. Caesar’s wife must be seen to be above suspicion.

The area of logistics is the second front. 2023 showed that a brilliant device means little if it arrives at 4 pm or the battery dies at noon. INEC’s Election Project Plan for 2027 should be public by June 2026. Polling unit-level mapping of RACs, transport contracts, and ad-hoc staff deployment must be test-run in mock elections in all six zones, not just in Abuja. Results sheets, BVAS, and power banks should be tracked with tamper-evident seals and live dashboards that parties can audit before election day.

Thirdly, is the law. The Electoral Act 2026 is a leap, but gaps still remain. The Act is silent on IReV downtime protocols. It does not criminalize withholding of result sheets by presiding officers. It leaves collation of “inconclusive” results to discretion. INEC should send a brief amendment package to the National Assembly now: define IReV as an integral part of collation, specify penalties for sabotage, and require that any result not uploaded within two hours triggers automatic review by the REC and party agents.

Fourth is prosecution. Under Section 145, INEC can prosecute electoral offenders. In practice, case files die in police stations. Of the 215 files from 2023, fewer than 30 saw arraignment by Q1 of 2026. Credibility demands examples. INEC needs a standing Electoral Offences Prosecution Unit with fiat from the AGF, and it must publish quarterly dockets. When a politician who ordered ballot snatching walks free, the next election is already rigged.

Fifth, voter register integrity. The 2026 CVR cleaned 2.1 million duplicates, but underage and foreign voters still appear on YouTube every cycle. INEC should run a final, audited display of the register by September 2026 and allow LGAs to challenge entries with evidence. Biometrics must be tied to NIN for all new registrants. A credible register does more for trust than a thousand press conferences.

Sixth, internal sabotage. Too many elections are lost in the rackets inside INEC: sale of PVCs, compromise of ad-hoc lists, last-minute posting of partisan SPOs. The Commission needs a whistleblower portal with financial rewards and witness protection. It also needs to break the monopoly of NURTW in logistics. In States where transport unions are political actors, INEC should contract registered logistics firms and track vehicles by GPS. No vehicle, no movement.

Seventh is communication. INEC’s silence during crises creates vacuums that misinformation fills. For 2027, the Commission should adopt a 30-minute rule: any major incident trends online, INEC speaks within 30 minutes with facts, even if the facts are “we are investigating.” A 24/7 war room with sign language, Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, and Pidgin briefings will cut the space for fake results. Trust is a media operation as much as a legal one.

Eighth, security collaboration. Soldiers have no role inside polling units. Their job is perimeter security and rapid response to violence. INEC must sign and publish a clear MoU with the Police, NSCDC, and military before December 2026. The MoU should ban checkpoints near polling units on election day and create hotlines that presiding officers can call without going through DPOs. Every election life lost is a stain on INEC’s scorecard.

Nigerian Horn suggests that the Commissio should audit itself if it is to get things right in 2027. It should concede what went wrong in 2023 without legalese,publish the IReV failure report and name officials sanctioned. It should show the fixes in BVAS 2.0. Humility is a strategy. Nigerians do not expect a perfect umpire. Rather, they expect an umpire that learns in public and improves in public.

The 2027 elections will be credible if INEC treats trust as a deliverable, with deadlines and KPIs, just like ballot papers and cubicles. Time is short. Ad-hoc recruitment will soon start. Every week of delay now is a petition at the tribunal later.

INEC does not need more power. It needs more preparation, more transparency, and the courage to call fouls on itself. That is how democracies are kept.