Voter register: INEC to purge 1.5m irregular registrants

•Amupitan can’t supervise credible polls in 2027 — Ezekwesili

By Omeiza Ajayi

ABUJA—The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, is set to delete about 1.5 million voter registrations found to be irregular from the national register, ahead of the 2027 general elections.

This is even as former Education Minister, Oby Ezekwesili, said yesterday that Nigeria could not conduct a credible 2027 election under an Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, led by Prof. Joash Amupitan.

INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan SAN, disclosed this while receiving a delegation on a courtesy visit to the commission’s headquarters in Abuja yesterday.

The delegation was led by the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for West Africa and the Sahel and Head of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel, UNOWAS, Mr. Leonardo Santos Simão.

Amupitan said technology-enabled verification helped the commission isolate the affected entries. 

The deletions, he explained, were part of a comprehensive cleaning of the register through the claims and objections process. 

The final register is scheduled for publication on December 15, 2026.

Amupitan said the commission had registered approximately 103 million voters,  with young Nigerians, aged 18 to 34, making up nearly 29 per cent of them. 

Amupitan said INEC would continue to strengthen the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, for accreditation, and the INEC Result Viewing Portal, IreV, for public access to polling-unit results.

He said the commission was also planning a mock accreditation and election to test these tools, identify possible challenges and build public confidence before the 2027 polls.

Amupitan identified misinformation, disinformation and foreign information manipulation as major threats to electoral integrity. 

He warned that the growing misuse of Artificial Intelligence, AI, and coordinated online campaigns could undermine public confidence in the electoral system.

INEC under Amupitan can’t supervise credible polls in 2027, says Ezekwesili

Meanwhile, former Education Minister, Oby Ezekwesili, has said Nigeria cannot conduct a credible 2027 election under an Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, led by Prof. Joash Amupitan.

According to her, INEC has lost all credibility to be an independent umpire of Nigeria’s elections.

Oby, who spoke against the backdrop of allegations of corruption involving the voter register through the use of artificial intelligence, noted that INEC’s Director of Information and Communication Technology, Dr Lawrence Bayode, on October 30, 2026, told Nigerians that INEC registration officers purportedly used their official login credentials to inject AI-generated photographs, duplicate records and other fabricated entries into the preliminary register of voters.

Ezekwesili said:  “Let us be clear about what this is. This is not a hack from outside. This is not a glitch. This is sabotage from within the very institution to which the Nigerian people entrusted the register of our sovereignty.”

‘’The people paid to protect the list of citizens manufactured phantom citizens. The 2027 general elections are now a matter of months away, and the foundational document of those elections has been admitted by its custodian to be compromised.

“I speak today as an Occupant of the Office of the Citizen, which I have long told the world, especially Nigerians, that it is the highest office in any democracy. 

‘’It is the office from which all other offices, including that of the president, senators, governors, lawmakers and public appointees like the Chairman of INEC, derive their authority and legitimacy. 

‘’The register of voters neither belongs to INEC nor the federal government nor the ruling party. It belongs to us, the citizens of Nigeria. Period! INEC merely holds it in trust. That trust, by its own admission, has been totally broken with the AI infiltration of the voter register.’’

She argued that INEC could not investigate itself, adding that “no institution that has just confessed to corrupting a national asset from within can then ask the nation to trust it alone to repair the damage. 

It is a principle of accountability so basic that we apply it to everyday contexts. 

‘’The accused does not sit as judge. The staff who held the credentials, the supervisors who approved their access, the ICT department that built the platform with the loophole they exploited, and the commission that certified the display of that register all now have an interest in the size of this scandal being declared small.

“Consider what INEC has done since the discovery. Its statement of October 27 named no cause. Three days later, its Director of ICT said on air that officers were compromised in several states, yet he also said he is still gathering evidence before reporting to the commission. 

“Almost one week after that, Nigerians still do not know how many records are affected, which states, which local governments, which officers, or whether a single one of them has been suspended, let alone handed to the police.”