Preparations for the 2027 general elections have intensified as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) commenced a six-zone national readiness assessment aimed at strengthening its operational capacity ahead of the polls.
The INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, SAN, on Monday declared open the South-West Zonal Interactive Meeting and Readiness Assessment in Lagos, describing the initiative as a departure from the Commission’s longstanding practice of handling zonal preparations mainly through its headquarters directorates.
According to a statement by the Director, Information and Voter Education Committee, Mrs Victoria Eta-Messi, the engagement marked the first leg of a six-zone national tour designed to assess the Commission’s preparedness for the 2027 elections.
The presidential and National Assembly elections are scheduled for Saturday, January 16, 2027, while the governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections will hold on Saturday, February 6, 2027.
Amupitan, who was accompanied by National Commissioners and Directors from the Commission’s headquarters, said the engagement was intended to bring the leadership closer to Electoral Officers and administrative staff working at the grassroots.
He described field officers as the “frontline guardians” of Nigeria’s democracy, stressing that the true test of electoral preparedness would be determined at the Local Government Areas, Registration Area Centres and polling units rather than in meeting rooms in Abuja.
The INEC chairman said the Commission was building on lessons from recent off-cycle elections, particularly the Osun State governorship election, which he said demonstrated the importance of operational discipline, technical competence and administrative integrity.
He, however, warned that the 2027 general election would present a significantly greater challenge because it would be conducted simultaneously across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
Amupitan identified voter apathy, declining public trust and the proliferation of misinformation and disinformation as major challenges facing the Commission.
He maintained that the professionalism and competence of INEC field personnel would remain one of the strongest safeguards against false narratives capable of undermining the electoral process.
On voter registration, the INEC chairman disclosed that the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise, conducted in three phases between August 2025 and July 2026, had recorded 10,772,421 new registrants, subject to ongoing Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) verification.
He said the third phase introduced, for the first time in Nigeria, an Online Registration Portal designed to make registration more accessible to eligible voters.
The Commission also introduced a new Printable Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) technology, which was first deployed during the Osun State governorship election in accordance with Section 18(1) of the Electoral Act.
Amupitan said the National Register of Voters was approaching the 100 million mark, assuring Nigerians that the Commission would work to ensure that no eligible voter was disenfranchised because of logistical challenges associated with PVC distribution.
On electoral technology, he said INEC was refining its Result Management Systems, including the recently introduced eEC8A, to enhance the verifiability of election results from polling units through to the national collation centre.
He also reiterated the Commission’s zero-tolerance policy towards partisan conduct and administrative negligence by its personnel.
According to him, Section 26 of the Electoral Act requires Electoral Officers, Presiding Officers, Returning Officers and security personnel involved in elections to take an oath of neutrality.
The INEC chairman further disclosed that the Commission was finalising a new salary and welfare package for its staff, Commission members and Resident Electoral Commissioners.
He said the package included the newly created Consolidated Election Management Body Salary Structure (CEMBSS), which took effect from January 1, 2026, as well as a 150 per cent increase in overhead allocations to states effective July 1, 2026.
INEC Unveils Real-Time Readiness Tracker
Meanwhile, the Commission is set to deploy what it described as a first-of-its-kind real-time readiness tracker to enable its leadership to monitor election preparations across the 36 states and the FCT.
Amupitan disclosed this while declaring open a two-day Strategic Operational Workshop for Administrative Secretaries at the Marriott Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos.
He said the workshop would produce a standardised Excel-based Administrative Secretary Master Operational Tracker Template linked directly to the Commission’s Election Monitoring and Support Centre (EMSC) dashboard and the Election Project Plan (EPP).
According to him, the new system would address the absence of a dedicated and uniform mechanism for monitoring the operational responsibilities of Administrative Secretaries.
He explained that once deployed, the tracker would provide Resident Electoral Commissioners, Supervising National Commissioners, the Secretary to the Commission and headquarters with real-time information on material distribution, ad-hoc staff training and state-level preparedness.
The innovation, he said, would replace a reactive approach to election management with proactive monitoring and would also serve as a permanent onboarding blueprint for future Administrative Secretaries beyond the 2027 elections.
Amupitan said the initiative was informed by lessons from recent off-cycle elections, including the Osun governorship election, and was part of efforts to replicate successful operational standards nationwide within the remaining six months before the 2027 polls.
Four Key Areas of Readiness
The Director, Planning and Monitoring, Mrs Helen Ajayi, said the zonal engagement was built around four major objectives.
She said the Commission would assess the level of preparedness of South-West states through situation reports covering logistics, recruitment of ad-hoc staff, technology, security, training, voter education and stakeholder engagement.
The engagement would also identify operational and logistical challenges that could affect the conduct of the elections, provide updates on voter registration and PVC collection, and assess the deployment and management of ICT resources.
Ajayi added that the exercise would ensure that personnel were properly aligned with the Commission’s Code of Conduct and operational and logistics requirements ahead of the elections.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner for Lagos State, Prof Ayobami Salami, said the state was honoured to host the maiden zonal engagement.
He noted that electoral credibility was built long before Election Day through early preparation, competent personnel and effective coordination.
Salami said the South-West presented a diverse electoral environment requiring readiness assessments that went beyond routine checklists to examine logistics resilience, technological reliability and stakeholder engagement across the six states.
He commended the Commission’s leadership for prioritising early preparation and described INEC personnel as its greatest asset in protecting the credibility of the 2027 elections.
Also speaking, the Secretary to the Commission, Mrs Rose Oriaran-Anthony, said the workshop would ensure that INEC headquarters and state offices operated from a common Election Project Plan.
She said Administrative Secretaries would be equipped with updated knowledge of new policies, technology and administrative procedures ahead of the elections.
Oriaran-Anthony added that each state delegation was expected to leave the workshop with a logistics risk register, an ad-hoc recruitment and deployment plan, a three-month stakeholder engagement plan and the new operational tracker template.
The workshop, organised by the Office of the Secretary to the Commission with support from Development Alternatives Incorporated (DAI) under the European Union Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria (EU-SDGN), brought together National Commissioners, Resident Electoral Commissioners, the Director-General of the Electoral Institute, headquarters directors and Administrative Secretaries from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
