INEC Chair Warns Electoral Officers Against Compromising 2027 Polls

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Joash Amupitan, has warned electoral officers against compromising the 2027 general elections, saying partisan leaning, administrative negligence and compromised ethics will not be tolerated.

Amupitan gave the warning on Monday in Lagos at a readiness-assessment meeting with commission staff. Premium Times reported that he told the officers every administrative decision may eventually face public scrutiny and judicial review, and that the credibility of the 2027 elections will depend on how faithfully the law is implemented by the officials entrusted with running it. Daily Post reported that he also opened a two-day workshop for the commission’s Administrative Secretaries from the 36 states and the FCT, describing INEC as having entered a critical six-month period of preparations and telling them the commission can no longer afford disjointed operational practices from state to state.

The INEC chairman said officers must remain neutral and administer elections without preference for any candidate or party, noting that the Electoral Act requires election duty staff to swear an oath of loyalty and neutrality. He cautioned them against improvising solutions where the law or commission guidelines already provide procedures, and asked that operational difficulties be escalated through proper channels.

He disclosed that the commission has registered 10,772,421 voters in three phases of the Continuous Voter Registration, subject to completion of biometric verification, and has introduced printable Permanent Voter Cards, first used at the recent Osun governorship election. INEC is also refining its result management system so the movement of results from polling units to the national collation centre remains visible and verifiable, and is applying what it calls a zero-failure protocol to logistics, training and deployment of sensitive materials.

Amupitan said the success of recent off-cycle elections, particularly in Osun, should not lead to complacency, adding that the 2027 poll will be judged by the quality of the process rather than the quantity of votes cast.

Sources: Premium Times, Daily Post