2027: Trust me to ship credible elections – Amupitan tells Nigerians

The chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Joash Amupitan, has appealed to Nigerians to trust in his management, assuring them that he’ll ship free, honest, credible and inclusive elections in 2027.

Amupitan gave the peace of mind on Thursday throughout a dialogue organised by the Kimpact Development Initiative, KDI, at Chatham House in London, United Kingdom.

Speaking in opposition to the backdrop of considerations over the credibility of the 2023 basic election, the INEC chairman admitted that technical issues throughout the train had affected public confidence within the fee.

“The 2023 general election significantly affected public confidence in INEC, and the commission is still working to rebuild the trust of Nigerians,” he stated.

Amupitan, nevertheless, assured Nigerians that measures had been launched to forestall inaccurate polling unit outcomes from showing on the INEC Result Viewing Portal, IReV, in 2027.

“The major problems we identified in 2023 occurred during the collation of results. We have now introduced technical measures to detect errors and prevent inaccurate results from being uploaded to IReV,” he stated.

“We have introduced safeguards to ensure that any result that is inaccurate at the polling unit will not be uploaded to IReV. Nigerians should be able to trust the results they see on the portal,” he stated.

“The recent off-cycle governorship elections in Anambra and Osun states demonstrated improvements in our performance, as we were able to declare the results the day after voting,” he added.

The INEC chairman additionally introduced that the fee would conduct a nationwide mock accreditation and voting train on November 28, 2026, to check its preparations for the 2027 basic election.

Amupitan additional maintained that his earlier involvement in authorized circumstances involving political disputes wouldn’t have an effect on his neutrality as electoral umpire.

“My loyalty is solely to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Electoral Act,” he stated.