Can INEC deliver credible 2027 General Elections?

 

Introduction

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is one of the 14 Federal Executive Bodies listed in Section 153 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as altered. It is tasked to among other things organise elections into various political offices in the country. The Commission is made up of a Chairman, and 12 National Commissioners.  The functions of INEC as contained in Section 15, Part 1 of the Third Schedule of the 1999 Constitution (As Amended) and Section 2 of the Electoral Act 2010 (As Amended) include the following:

Organise, undertake and supervise all elections to the offices of the President and Vice-President, the Governor and Deputy Governor of a State, and to the membership of the Senate, the House of Representatives and the House of Assembly of each state of the federation; Register political parties in accordance with the provisions of the constitution and Act of the National Assembly; Monitor the organisation and operation of the political parties, including their finances; conventions, congresses and party primaries; Arrange for the annual examination and auditing of the funds and accounts of political parties, and publish a report on such examination and audit for public information

Others include: Arrange and conduct the registration of persons qualified to vote and prepare, maintain and revise the register of voters for the purpose of any election under this constitution; Monitor political campaigns and provide rules and regulations which shall govern the political parties; Conduct voter and civic education; Promote knowledge of sound democratic election processes; Conduct any referendum required to be conducted pursuant to the provision of the 1999 Constitution or any other law or Act of the National Assembly. Section 98. — (1) of the Electoral Act 2022 says “The conduct of elections into the offices of Chairman, Vice Chairman and a member of an Area Council and the recall of a member of an Area Council shall be under the direction and supervision of the Commission in accordance with the provisions of this Act”

 

Challenges with INEC electoral planning

Thus far, since the beginning of this Fourth Republic in 1999, INEC has conducted seven general elections and scores of off-cycle governorship elections as well as bye-elections. The General Elections were conducted in 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019, and 2023. The performance of the Commission in the onerous tasks of conducting elections in Nigeria cannot be unileanerly assessed. This is because of some endogenous and exogenous factors. Internally the structure of INEC is a vast bureaucracy comprising of the Headquarters in Abuja, 37 State Secretariats (36 states and FCT), as well as 774 Area Council and Local Government offices. The staff strength of INEC is about 16, 500. However, during general elections, the Commission relies on over a million ad-hoc staff comprising of academics and members of the National Youth Service Corps.

Ahead of every election, INEC engages in huge procurement. It prints millions of ballot papers and result sheets and also buys hardware such as the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), ballot boxes, Water storage tanks and Electricity Generators for the 8,809 RAC Centres. To do this, the Commission requires billions of naira. If the needed resources is not made available, it can impact negatively on the performance of the Commission. The printing companies used by INEC are external to it. Most of the lawyers used for election litigations are not staff of the commission, those who provide election day transport logistics are members of the Road Transport Unions as the Commission does not have the full complement of the operational vehicles needed to perform its duties.

Election security is exogenous to INEC. The Commission, though have established a standing committee known as Inter Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security, It relies on the Office of National Security Adviser to coordinate the deployment of members of the Nigeria Police and Armed Forces that will serve on election duty. The judiciary is also external to INEC and there are rumblings that court injunctions and judgements given by the judiciary, too close to election time, do impact negatively on electoral planning. INEC is joined in all pre-election and post-election matter even when it is not related to election conducted by it. For instance, it is the political parties that conducts party primaries and disqualifies aspirants. Yet, when litigants seek redress in court, INEC is joined as the umpire. Cost of hiring lawyers to defend the Commission is very huge.

Formulation of electoral laws including amendment to the laws is beyond INEC as it is in the purview of the legislature, especially the National Assembly. The 2022 Electoral Act was passed by National Assembly barely a year to the 2023 General Elections. The bill wa (depends on position being vied for)s vetoed about four times by former President Muhammadu Buhari between 2018 and 2022. As it stands now, National Assembly has started another round of constitutional and electoral act alteration and it is unknown when this exercise will be concluded. If the alterations are done too late, it will impact negatively on the 2027 General Elections.

Nomination of candidates is totally out of INEC’s hands. Political parties conduct their primaries and only mandatorily invites INEC as an observer. The Commission is not at liberty to reject any nomination except the person so nominated did not satisfy the basic constitutional requirements such as being of age (it depends on the position being vied for), academic qualification and membership of a political party. As to the merit or demerit of the conduct of the party primaries, INEC cannot pass a judgement neither can it reject any nomination by the political parties.

As it is with every contests or examination, a winner claims to have won while losers will lay claim to have been willfully failed or rigged out as in the case of election. Thus, a successful candidate will praise INEC to high heaven to have conducted credible polls while the losers will pontificate that INEC is the worst institution which should be disbanded aand reconstituted. Even when cases are filed in court, the person with favorable judgement will laud their lordships for a sound judgement while losers will cry foul that the bench has been compromised. It’s always a dicey situation.

What will guarantee credible 2027 General Elections?

It’s barely two years to the eight general elections in 2027. Yet the polity is being heated up by the political class who are already aligning and realigning. There are meetings by opposition party chieftains to form a new coalition against the ruling All Progressives Congress. Furthermore, there are political endorsements as someone like President Bola Tinubu has already been adopted by his party as the sole presidential candidate in 2027. Just last Friday, June 6, 2025, Governor Umo Eno officially defected from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressives Congress. This is coming on the heels of Governor Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State who defected from PDP to APC in May 2025.

According to Section 28. — (1) of the Electoral Act 2022 “The Commission shall, not later than 360 days before the day appointed for holding of an election under this Act, publish a notice in each State of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory—…”. Thus, until February 2026, INEC will not officially blow whistle on the preparation for the 2027 General Elections. Meanwhile, in the interim, the Commission is planning for the conduct of Anambra governorship election in November 2025 as well as Ekiti and Osun general elections in 2026. There are also scores of bye-election the Commission will conduct ahead of the 2027 polls. Before then, the Commission will conduct Continuous Voters Registration exercise as well as procurement of election materials for the next set of polls.

Will INEC be able to conduct credible future elections?

This is a million-dollar question. As enunciated above, credibility of election depends on a number of endogenous and exogenous factors or variables. They must work in sync to enable the electoral management body deliver credible polls. Will INEC get its funding as and when due? Will it be well resourced financially and otherwise? The tenure of the incumbent INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu should end in November 2025. Does anybody know who will replace him? Will he or she be a person of integrity that will be non-partisan? Civil society organisations are agitating for the INEC chairman and commissioners position to be advertised and subjected to public scrutiny. I do not see the possibility of that happening soon. That method itself is not foolproof because even a person of integrity and impeccable character can be muscled by pressure from the executive arm. There is also the issue with appointing non-partisan ad-hoc staff who will not be swayed by the politicians’ carrot or stick. It is heartwarming that President Bola Tinubu recently made a scape goat of three former Resident Electoral Commissioners of Abia, Adamawa and Sokoto States when he sacked them in February 2025 due to abuse of office. We have also seen a Professor in Akwa Ibom who was jailed by the court for aiding and abetting electoral fraud in 2019. These are exemplary conduct that can make people who will supervise future elections to sit up and refuse to compromise.

Political Parties, Security agencies, National Assembly, the Judiciary and even the Executive that provides the funds must all work to support INEC to succeed. Media, Civil society and electorate must provide the needed support to oversight all the key stakeholders in the electoral process. The media for instance also have the additional responsibility of objective and conflict sensitive reportage while voters should shun violence and vote trading. Candidates must do away with the win-at-all-cost mentality. If all these are done, then the horizon will be bright for free, fair, credible and successful polls.

Jide Ojo is an Abuja based Development Consultant, Author and Public Affairs Analyst.