The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday expressed confidence that it has overcome the technical challenges that affected the electronic transmission of results during the 2023 general election.
The commission assured Nigerians that next year’s polls will be free, fair, credible, inclusive and transparent.
INEC also announced that it was considering conducting a nationwide mock exercise on the electronic transmission of election results well ahead of the 2027 general election to further test its systems.
INEC’s National Commissioner, Abdullahi Zuru, who represented the commission’s Chairman, Prof Joash Amupitan, at a Policy Roundtable on Electronic Transmission of Results organised by Yiaga Africa, said the commission had learnt from the shortcomings recorded during the 2023 elections and had significantly improved its deployment of election technology.
Delivering the chairman’s goodwill message, Zuru recalled that INEC had consistently called for legal backing for electronic transmission of election results before the 2023 general election and had successfully deployed the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal in several off-cycle elections before expanding its use nationwide.
He acknowledged that the commission experienced technical difficulties in uploading presidential election results to the IReV portal during the 2023 polls.
“Unfortunately, this became very important in the light of the technical glitch experienced in uploading presidential election results to IReV. Let me assure you that we at INEC have learnt our lessons and improved our operations,” he said.
According to him, elections conducted after the 2023 general election, including governorship elections, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Area Council elections and several bye-elections, have demonstrated the commission’s improved capacity to deploy election technology.
“We want to use this opportunity to assure Nigerians in general, and the voters in particular, that INEC will ensure that the 2027 general election shall be free, fair, credible, inclusive and transparent. Every valid vote will count. Voters will decide who governs them,” Zuru said.
Responding to reporters’ questions on concerns over the technical glitches and alleged hacking that trailed the 2023 presidential election, Zuru said the commission had moved beyond those challenges.
“Yes, we are confident we will be able to handle these issues. We’ve conducted several elections, bye-elections and governorship elections since the 2023 incidents, and everybody agrees that there’s remarkable improvement in the elections that have been conducted.
“We just conducted the Anambra governorship election and the FCT Area Council elections. This is clear evidence that we have moved on from where we were on this issue,” he added.
But Zuru cautioned against relying solely on technology, stressing that honesty, sincerity and integrity among election stakeholders remain critical to credible elections.
“There are three important things: honesty, truth and sincerity. Once these things are there, technology will not be an issue. Let us leverage these values as a nation to ensure that everything we do is sincere, truthful and honest,” he said.
The Director of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at INEC, Dr. Lawrence Bayode, said the commission had already tested its enhanced results transmission system during the FCT Area Council and Ekiti governorship elections.
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“Our system has been piloted in the FCT and Ekiti elections. Every result uploaded to the IReV during those elections used Form EC8A. This is not something we are just introducing. It is something we have tested, and that is why we will deploy it for the forthcoming elections,” Bayode said.
He explained that the system was designed to eliminate discrepancies in election results by ensuring that only the authentic polling unit results are transmitted and uploaded.
“It is a tool that will check that the result emanating from the polling unit is the true result from that polling unit,” he added.
At the event, Yiaga Africa unveiled a policy brief titled Securing the Votes: Electronic Transmission and Collation of Election Results under Nigeria’s New Legal Framework, identifying legal and operational gaps in the Electoral Act 2026 and INEC’s regulations on electronic transmission of election results.
Presenting the report, Yiaga Africa Executive Director, Samson Itodo, said that although the Electoral Act 2026 made electronic transmission of polling unit results mandatory, operational gaps remained.
He noted that polling unit results are uploaded to the IReV portal only after backend validation rather than immediately after they are entered at polling units, while ward and local government collation results are not published on the portal.
According to him, the gaps deny voters real-time visibility into critical stages of the results management process and fuel suspicion of manipulation.
Yiaga recommended that INEC publish a clear protocol for transmitting polling unit results, upload ward and local government collation results to IReV, clarify which version of Form EC8A is legally authoritative where discrepancies arise, revise relevant sections of its regulations, develop a comprehensive results management manual and conduct nationwide mock exercises before the 2027 general election.
Responding to the recommendations, Zuru said the commission was already considering conducting a mock exercise.
“This is advice being given by Yiaga Africa, and it comes at a time we are thinking in the same direction. We will not wait until one or two weeks before the election; we will try to do that much earlier,” he said.
Also speaking, the European Union Programme Manager for Democracy and Governance, Laolu Olawunmi, said public confidence in elections largely depends on how results are managed.
“Election results management is the stage where public trust is either built or broken,” she said.
Olawunmi urged INEC to strengthen stress testing of its technology, improve upload capacity, conduct practical simulations and provide more training for election officials ahead of future elections. She also called for greater access for party agents and election observers to collation centres to enhance transparency.
Meanwhile, the National Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Yusuf Dantalle, said the Electoral Act still requires reforms to strengthen Nigeria’s electoral process.
He noted that many political parties had recently adopted consensus candidates because of the high cost of conducting primaries and pledged that IPAC would continue engaging stakeholders to advocate further electoral reforms.
The Nation .
