The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is set to deploy a real-time election readiness tracker to monitor preparations for the 2027 general elections across Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
The tracker will give the commission’s leadership instant updates on logistics, the recruitment and training of ad hoc personnel, electoral technology and other critical preparations, in a move aimed at preventing last-minute operational challenges ahead of the polls.
INEC Chairman, Prof Joash Amupitan (SAN), disclosed this on Monday in Lagos at a two-day strategic operational workshop for the commission’s administrative secretaries.
According to a statement issued by INEC and signed by its Director of Voter Education and Publicity, Victoria Eta-Messi, the commission will roll out what it described as a “first-of-its-kind, real-time readiness tracker” as the national register of voters approaches 100 million ahead of the 2027 elections.
The workshop is expected to produce a standardised, Excel-based Administrative Secretary Master Operational Tracker Template, which will be linked to the commission’s Election Monitoring and Support Centre dashboard and Election Project Plan.
Amupitan said INEC had historically lacked a dedicated and uniform mechanism for monitoring the operational responsibilities of administrative secretaries across the country.
He said the new system would provide Resident Electoral Commissioners, supervising national commissioners, the Secretary to the Commission and headquarters with instant visibility into the level of preparedness in each state.
The tracker will cover key areas including the distribution of election materials, recruitment and training of ad hoc personnel and overall state-level readiness.
Amupitan said the objective was to move INEC away from its traditional last-minute approach to election preparations, describing the goal as replacing “reactive panic with proactive management.”
Voter registration nears 11 million new registrants
The INEC chairman also disclosed that the Continuous Voter Registration exercise, conducted in three phases between August 2025 and July 2026, recorded a cumulative 10,772,421 new registrants, subject to ongoing verification through the Automated Biometric Identification System.
He said the National Register of Voters was approaching the 100 million mark, reaffirming the commission’s commitment to ensuring that no eligible Nigerian was disenfranchised because of logistical challenges in the distribution of Permanent Voter Cards.
Amupitan said Continuous Voter Registration was one of five major operational areas being reviewed at the workshop.
The others are logistics and materials management, electoral technology, optimisation of ad hoc staff and financial compliance.
He added that the readiness tracker was not being developed solely for the 2027 election cycle but would serve as a permanent operational and onboarding blueprint for future administrative secretaries.
The INEC chairman said the commission was drawing lessons from recent off-cycle elections, particularly the Osun State governorship election, where disciplined logistics and functioning technology contributed to what the commission described as a transparent process.
“We are now working to replicate that standard nationally,” Amupitan said.
He added that the commission had about six months to prepare for the 2027 general elections.
The presidential and National Assembly elections are scheduled for January 16, 2027, while the governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections will hold on February 6, 2027.
Speaking at the workshop, Lagos State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof Ayobami Salami, described the exercise as timely and commended the European Union, through its Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria programme, for supporting the initiative.
The Secretary to the Commission, Rose Oriaran-Anthony, said the workshop would ensure that INEC headquarters and its state offices worked from the same Election Project Plan.
She added that each state delegation was expected to leave the workshop with a logistics risk register, an ad hoc recruitment and deployment plan, and a three-month stakeholder engagement plan.
Amupitan warns INEC staff over 2027 election pressure
Meanwhile, Amupitan has warned INEC personnel that pressure on the commission ahead of the 2027 elections would be enormous.
Speaking at a separate South-West zonal interactive meeting and readiness assessment in Lagos on Monday, the chairman said INEC staff were effectively on the frontline of Nigeria’s democracy.
“The eyes of 200 million Nigerians, and the world, are fixed on us,” he said.
The meeting, held at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Ikeja, marked the beginning of a six-zone tour by the commission to assess its preparedness for the 2027 elections.
Amupitan said the exercise represented a departure from more than two decades of administrative practice in which zonal preparations were largely handled by headquarters directorates.
He said the real test of INEC’s preparedness would not be found in meeting rooms in Abuja but at local government areas, registration area centres and polling units across the country.
The chairman identified voter apathy, public distrust, misinformation and disinformation as major threats to the 2027 elections.
He said the competence and conduct of INEC’s field officers would remain the commission’s “strongest defence against false narratives.”
The commission also said it was refining its result management systems, including the recently introduced eEC8A, to improve the verification of polling-unit results through the national collation centre.
Amupitan warned INEC personnel against partisan conduct and administrative negligence, citing Section 26 of the Electoral Act, which requires relevant electoral and security personnel to take an oath of neutrality.
The commission said the South-West engagement would focus on logistics, technology, security, voter education, recruitment and stakeholder engagement as preparations intensify for the 2027 elections.
