INEC Says Ballot Box Snatching Era Is Over Ahead Of 2027 Polls

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan, has said the era of ballot box snatching and manual alteration of results is over ahead of the 2027 general elections.

Amupitan said INEC’s current legal and technological safeguards are strong enough to protect votes, but warned that voter education remains essential before the polls.

He made the remarks in Abuja during a courtesy visit by the Director-General of the National Orientation Agency, Lanre Issa-Onilu, to INEC headquarters.

According to Vanguard, Amupitan said legal and technological safeguards now make it harder for ballot boxes to be snatched or results to be rewritten manually. Daily Post reported that he told Nigerians the technology now in use is strong enough to ensure that every vote counts.

The INEC chairman said the commission and the NOA must deepen voter education before the 2027 polls, especially because voter apathy and misinformation remain concerns.

Vanguard reported that Amupitan referred to operational gains from recent elections, including early opening of many polling units, biometric authentication through the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System and swift result uploads to the INEC Result Viewing Portal.

He also said those improvements do not remove the need for civic education. The reports said INEC wants community-level campaigns to explain why votes matter, how the voting process works and how citizens can avoid misinformation and vote-buying.

Amupitan said technology alone cannot build a strong democracy if citizens remain detached from the process. He called for NOA field officers to be equipped with accurate information about INEC operations so they can help explain the system to voters.

The NOA leadership also called for stronger collaboration with INEC, saying turnout on election days remains low compared with the number of registered voters.

Sources: Vanguard, Daily Post