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Since assuming office as chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in October 2025, Professor Joash Amupitan has consistently assured Nigerians that he would deliver a free, fair, and credible poll in 2027. He also boasted that he would conduct an election where the loser will happily congratulate the winner. The INEC boss had earlier noted, in January 2026, that the 2027 election would be a watershed in Nigeria’s election history, and that the commission would not tolerate any misconduct in the electoral process. He had identified free, fair, credible, transparent and inclusive elections as INEC’s five non-negotiable pillars.
Besides, during a recent visit to former Head of State and chairman of the National Peace Committee, Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar (retd), Amupitan also assured Nigerians that their votes would count in the 2027 elections.
Following the successful conduct of the Osun State governorship poll on August 15, 2026, INEC has similarly vowed to improve on the standard set in Osun. The National Commissioner and chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee, Mohammed Haruna, gave the assurance in Abuja during a solidarity march to the headquarters of the commission by African Centre for Justice and Human Rights.
Haruna noted that INEC has continued to improve and that the conduct of the Osun poll was in line with the commission’s commitment to conducting free, fair and credible elections in the country. He assured that INEC would remain committed to improving the quality of elections in the country.
The coordinator of the group and National Organising Secretary of the Action Peoples Party (APP), Obed Agu, rightly stated that the Osun State governorship election has renewed the confidence of many Nigerians in the electoral process ahead of the 2027elections. The steps which INEC took that informed the group’s position included engagement with political parties, adherence to electoral timelines, improved stakeholder engagement, and preparations for 2027 election.
With the heightened interest in the 2027 election, Amupitan cannot afford to fail Nigerians. He should not follow the path of almost all his predecessors who made similar promises but failed woefully to conduct credible elections. He should beware of the machinations of politicians who will want him to circumvent constitutional provisions on conduct of elections.
Nigerians want an election where votes will count. They should emulate Osun people in coming out to vote massively and defending their votes. About 43.20 per cent of the 2,339,233, registered voters were accredited to vote in Osun in the August 15 election. In contrast, only about 27 per cent of the over 93 million registered voters turned out to vote in the 2023 presidential election.
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The Osun relative electoral success did not come easy though. The build-up to the election was tension-soaked. Scores of election-related violent incidents, which resulted in the death of no fewer than 30 people, were recorded. Also, an All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain and senator from the state, Francis Fadahunsi, reportedly urged his thugs to kill Accord Party members and stop them from voting during the election.
On the eve of the election, almost all the governors elected on the platform of the APC, national party leaders, ministers and federal lawmakers swooped on the state to show solidarity with their party’s governorship candidate. This further heightened tension in the state.
The election itself was not totally devoid of some malpractices and violent incidents. Results of several units were cancelled. This was due to reports of ballot-box snatching and attacks on voting cubicles. Allegations of vote-buying and voter interference were rife. At some polling stations, there was limited and slow deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) devices. Overall, however, the BVAS did not disappoint. Results were also uploaded almost seamlessly on the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal.
INEC should improve on this in 2027. There should be no room for technical glitches anymore or favouring one candidate or political party against the other. All logistics must be in place before the election.
INEC alone cannot guarantee a free and credible election. The Federal Government, political parties, candidates and other political actors, security agencies, the judiciary, and other stakeholders must cooperate to ensure a transparent election in 2027. The Federal Government must not interfere in what INEC is doing. It should give the commission the needed assistance to conduct a transparent and credible election. As Amupitan has demanded, the commission should be funded directly from the federation account to guarantee its independence.
The judiciary should dispense justice without bias. There should be no room for forum shopping or technicalities in adjudicating on pre-and-post-election litigation. Political parties and their candidates must shun violence in all ramifications. Hiring thugs to snatch ballot boxes is a disservice to our democracy and should be avoided completely. Campaigns must be issue-based without any ethnic or sectional colouration.
Security agencies should show firmness and neutrality in tackling election violence and malpractices. This will further guarantee the credibility of the election. In all, Nigerians should beware of all forms of inducement in 2027. They should vote for capable and competent candidates, knowing that the stake is higher in the 2027 general election than in the off-cycle elections.
