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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Stakeholders have been sharply divided in their postmortem assessment, perceptions, and appraisal of the performances of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the recently concluded Ekiti State off-cycle governorship election.
To many of the local and foreign election observers, the electoral umpire has performed creditably well in the discharge of its statutory responsibility before, during and after the governorship polls. Yet to several Nigerians, there was no marginal or significant difference between INEC’s previous outings from what it recorded during the Ekiti poll.
For the latter, the unimpressive ratings of the electoral commission is understandable, especially with numerous incidents of technological glitches typified in the malfunction, partial or outright failure of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) to authentic the credibility of many electorate, particularly the elderly voters.
According to them, the complaints trailing late arrival of voting materials, the apathy, though largely attributable to lack of voter education, and or voters’ trust deficit on the possibilities of the commission conducting credible, free, fair, transparent election, accounted for their impression that the commission has not changed.
Although the commission lacks the instrumentality to curtail and or completely stop the spiralling now digitally clinical incidents of vote buying and selling, its ability to convince the electorate beyond every doubt that their votes will count in deciding the outcome of the poll, has equally contributed in escalating the menace.
From the post-election reports, many of the election observers seem to be in sync that there were marginal improvements generally in logistics, early arrival of sensitive and non-sensitive materials to many polling units, functionality of the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) portal, insignificant cases of violence such as snatching of ballot boxes, fighting or shooting at the polling centres among others.
In its own assessment for instance, Yiaga Africa, claimed that INEC recorded progress, though integrity gaps persisted, just as it expressed concerns that vote buying, voter inducement and election management shortcomings undermined the integrity of the process.
While appraising further, Yiaga also lamented that ballot secrecy was compromised in some locations, explaining: “The poll witnessed early deployment of officials and materials, timely commencement of accreditation and voting, and a generally peaceful atmosphere across the state.”
“Seventy-five per cent of polling units received INEC officials by 7:30am, the figure rose to 99 per cent by 8:30am. Accreditation and voting commenced in 70 per cent of polling units by 8:30am and 98 per cent by 9:30am,” it noted in the report.
Yiaga, while reacting further, however stressed that; “The election exposed critical gaps in results management, voter turnout computation, the consistency of sensitive materials, and public communication of late administrative and judicial changes affecting the election.”
“In addition, widespread reports of vote buying and voter inducement undermined the integrity of voter choice and remain a serious threat to credible elections. BVAS malfunctioned in 13 per cent of polling units. “Although the issues were eventually resolved, some voters were denied accreditation because the device failed to verify their permanent voter cards or biometrics,” Yiaga lamented in the report.
Similarly, loud complaints over incidents of malfunctional BVAS equally resonated across every part of the state. And expressing disappointment over the process, former Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari, Senator Babafemi Ojudu, said: “The people are orderly, but the process was cumbersome. The people came en masse to vote. They were peaceful, they were on the queue, as expected, but the process was cumbersome.”
“Before they could get my vitals, I mean my fingerprint and my photograph, it took almost 30 minutes. And if it took 30 minutes to capture one person and then qualify him to vote, I wondered how many hours required to accredit 500 people to vote. So, there was a problem with the INEC system.
“The BVAS malfunctioned. I don’t know what happened in other polling units, but I am reporting directly from my polling unit. We were here at exactly 8.00am and almost an hour later, only one person voted. So, it was not a good one at all. The BVAS machine did not work. I don’t know why INEC should not be able to provide machines that work,” he lamented.
Another voter who identified himself as Wasiu Owolewa, while fuming against the electoral umpire, appealed that the glitch must be rectified before next year’s presidential election, complaining: “The process did not run smoothly. Eligible voters were on the queue for hours without casting their votes due to the malfunctioning of the BVAS machine. The machine broken down over three times.”
“We have been told that technicians worked on it, but we advise that they find an alternative. Our voters lamented the situation. Most of them at the polling unit since morning, left angrily. This form of disenfranchisement was not good enough. I thought INEC should have improved on this or made alternative arrangements,” Owolewa complained.
Although the electoral umpire chairman, Prof Joash Amupitan, recently spoke of an advance technology to ensure that stranded voters easily locate their polling units or situation electoral officials prevent eligible voters unable to find their names on the voters’ register to vote through downloadable Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs), it was a very big challenge during the election.
While lamenting the challenge during the Ekiti poll, Owolewa noted: “Another issue is that many eligible voters were able to find their names on the voters’ register, but INEC officials denied them the opportunity to vote because they could not present their PVCs.
“We have information that such voters were allowed to vote once their names appear on the register in some other polling units. I do not understand what is happening with INEC this time around. Considering the amount of money spent on elections, the commission should have improved on these issues. I want to urge INEC to improve on these problems so that by the time of the next major election like the forthcoming presidential poll, they will not occur again,” Owolewa appealed.
Apparently responding to this, the commission’s boss, said: “We have an app that can be used by eligible voters to locate their polling unit before the day of the election so that they don’t need to roam about looking for their polling units on election day.
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“This is very intensive, deep-rooted voter education. And it proves that we cannot afford to wait until the eve of 2027 to start talking to our people. Let me also say that under the new Electoral Act 2026, downloadable PVCs have been introduced. This is an area that will need a lot of education. It is not only the PVCs that are downloadable,” he noted.
While explaining the modalities, Prof Amupitan said: “You must have gotten your PVC before and you can only do it maybe when your PVC is lost, defaced, or some others that will make it impossible for you to read the number that is there. The voter must do a complaint because it is not automatic. The complaint must be 90 days before the election so that it will enable us to print the placement card.
“The provision is flexible that the moment you complain, you should be able to print your downloadable PVC where you can use. The service will not be available for voters that have not collected their PVC. We are working on that technology that will make the downloadable PVC possible, which hopefully we are going to commence during the Osun state governorship election in August this year, and that is next month,” he revealed.
The technical glitches and other sundry issues were not the only problems encountered during the Ekiti poll. The bazaar in vote buying and selling was another intractable worrisome menace.
The spiral incident of it was widespread that many election observers claimed that it would be difficult to differentiate whether vote buying and selling was the factor that swayed the outcome of the election.
In his confirmation that the electoral umpire was helpless, Ekiti State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Dr Bunmi Omoseyindemi, had warned that the commission would not guarantee the curtailing of the incident, announcing that the commission could only put the security agencies on red alert to take charge of the situation.
“First of all, there must be enough education to the people not to buy and sell their votes. People must change their mindset concerning electoral process. They must not see during election as the only time they can change their life every time.
“Until we can get through that proper way of educating people, we will still have these incidents of vote buying, which comes in various forms. The people that we see on the election day are the ones that we will see. However, it is the responsibility of the ICPC and the EFCC to handle them. It is not the responsibility of INEC,” he said.
For the Executive Director, Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, who expressed disappointment in a chat with newsmen in Ado-Ekiti, said: “The magnitude of vote buying in this election is really troubling. And it was a missed opportunity for all the actors who were determined to reduce vote buying at the election,” he quipped.
But, regardless of the positive and negative side of the assessments, the management of the electoral commission has already passed a resounding vote of confidence in the poll, giving itself a pass mark. It noted that though the exercise was tedious, it surmounted all odds to conduct a credible, free, fair and roundly commended election in Ekiti.
Supervising National Commissioner in charge of Ekiti, Lagos and Oyo states, Mr Sam Olumekun, in his remarks while presenting certificate of return to the governor-elect, Biodun Oyebanji, attributed the successful outing on the experiences of conducting credible poll in Anambra State and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) elections.
“The journey was tedious, but it is my joy to note that INEC surmounted all odds to conduct a credible, free, fair and roundly commended election in Ekiti. The various lessons learnt in previous elections in Anambra and that of FCT Area Council elections have informed the commission of some policy decisions to ensure greater transparency and efficiency of resources for elections in Nigeria.
“Technology has greatly enhanced the accuracy and transparency of conducting elections at all levels with BVAS and IReV leading in the game changing process. I can confidently say that Ekiti State governorship election is yet another great performance from INEC as we look forward to the general elections in 2027,” Olumekun said.
Another area of real concern was the issue of voter apathy and the inconsistency in the number of political parties that participated in the election. For many observers, it beats the imagination that fewer than 400,000 out of close to a million registered voters (about 34 per cent) participated in the poll.
Acknowledging it, the electoral umpire chairman said: “We talked about voter apathy and deep-seated cynicism of INEC and other public institutions. We can see this in our off-cycle elections where the turnout does not match the energy of our national conversations.”
While lamenting the inconsistency, civil society organisations and part of the European Union Election Observation Hub noted that Form EC8A polling unit result sheets specifically provided spaces for 15 political parties; the ballot papers in circulation had 19 parties while INEC’s final list of candidates, as updated and available on the INEC website as at 18th June 2026, reflected 14 parties that fielded candidates.
It was a matter of concern because the inconsistencies almost created confusion during voting and collation where result sheets included parties that were not on the ballot, but presiding officers recorded zero votes for parties that voters did not see. Conversely, where voters cast ballots for parties not reflected on the result sheet, such actions could create uncertainty in recording, reconciliation, and collation.
While summing up the outing in Ekiti, Amupitan recently said: “I appreciate the fact that our logistics can only get better, and we will continue to improve until we get there. However, the challenges we face as a commission today is the issue of misinformation and manipulation through AI.
“And unfortunately for us, some people deliberately want to use this medium because we lack the proper protocol to even control the use of AI. Some people are trying to use it to confuse and mislead Nigerians, just for their own personal interest, not the overall interest of Nigeria.
“Like I heard before the Ekiti election, INEC has succeeded in turning the state to a carnival. Everybody was there to enjoy themselves, the environment was calm, it was peaceful, the security deployment was excellent, the deployment of materials was sensitive and non-sensitive.
“One of the civil societies actually said that with what we have seen, we should just replicate the same template for the general election. They believe that the general election will be very successful. We are determined to make it a very successful and peaceful election,” he assured Nigerians.
