Ahead of the 2027 general election, the credibility of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, voters’ register has come under scrutiny.
this is following the recent revelation by the INEC chairman, Professor Joash Amupitan that names of the many dead persons were still in the register.
Amupitan had revealed that names of voters who had died as far back as 15 years ago were still in the country’s voter register, a development many argue would not only question the credibility of the 2027 election outcomes but also cause unnecessary financial waste in terms of printing ballot papers and providing other logistics for the exercise.
This was revealed when the INEC boss received Director-General/Chief Executive Officer of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) Abisoye Coker-Odusote and her management team who visited him in Abuja on Wednesday.
According to Amupitan, INEC has already entered into partnership with NIMC to ensure a credible voters register and transparent elections in next year’s polls.
He noted that INEC would leverage NIMC’s data architecture to progressively clean up the register.
He explained that a credible, well-quantified voter register would significantly reduce the overall cost of conducting elections, noting that INEC currently has to print materials in excess of the over 100 million entries on its register to accommodate discrepancies.
He stressed that the newly signed NIMC Act 2026 lays the foundation for a new electoral system in Nigeria built on verified identity and stronger data integrity, expressing confidence that with NIMC’s database now covering more than 136 million enrolled Nigerians, deeper cross-platform integration between the two commissions would allow for continuous auditing, verification and elimination of duplicate or underage entries on the voter register.
“Also, the INEC’s newly introduced online voter registration platform is deliberately anchored on the National Identification Number (NIN) as a verification protocol, a critical step toward a more seamless Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) process,” he said.
Apart from the financial implications of such a questionable register, the INEC chairman was candid about the identity-related challenges, saying that voter identity could easily be stolen, easily impersonated and easily duplicated.
The NIMC boss, Coker-Odusote also assured that identity remains the foundation of effective governance and credible election planning, pledging NIMC’s full support to INEC in delivering a fair and transparent 2027 general elections.
The INEC chairman’s revelation was just a confirmation of the fear being expressed by many Nigerians.
A university lecturer, Dr Samuel Adegboye, believes that having dead persons’ names on the voter register aids election manipulations.
He also believes that sometimes, it is deliberate, noting that, “some corrupt INEC officials are working in cahoots with some dubious politicians to ensure that election manipulation is made possible.
“With the names of dead persons in the voter register, it becomes very easy for politicians to inflate figures at the end of the day. And as I said, such politicians work in cahoots with some INEC officials.