The chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Joash Amupitan has expressed worry over the emerging threats to Nigeria’s electoral process ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Amupitan while speaking at the 2nd Annual Lecture of the Alumni Association of the National Institute for Security Studies (AANISS) said that credible polls are inseparable from national security.
He also emphasised that elections and security must no longer be treated as separate concerns but as “two sides of the same coin of national stability.”
The INEC Chairman further stated that Nigeria is passing into a critical phase following the release of the 2027 election timetable.
According to him, the scheduled presidential and National Assembly elections now represent not just political milestones but “a security trigger.”
Amupitan acknowledged a “sophisticated triad” of threats facing Nigeria’s elections, including social media volatility, AI-driven disinformation, and Foreign Information Manipulation (FIMI), compounded by logistical and security challenges such as insurgency and communal conflicts.
He said, “Without a secure environment, the sovereign will of the people is not just threatened; it is silenced.”
He stressed that restoring public trust in elections is vital to preventing unrest, warning that declining voter turnout—from 53% in 2011 to 26% in 2023—poses a serious security risk by creating a vacuum that could be exploited by destabilising actors.
He highlighted the Commission’s reliance on technological tools such as the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) as critical safeguards against fraud, while calling for stronger inter-agency collaboration through the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES).
