The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has assured Nigerians that the technical challenges experienced during the electronic transmission of results in the 2023 general election have been addressed ahead of the 2027 polls.
The commission said it had improved its election technology systems and was confident that the next general election would be free, fair, credible, inclusive and transparent.
INEC National Commissioner Abdullahi Zuru, who represented the commission’s Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, gave the assurance at a policy roundtable on electronic transmission of election results organised by Yiaga Africa.
Zuru said INEC had reviewed the challenges recorded during the 2023 elections and strengthened its deployment of technology for election management.
He recalled that the commission had advocated legal support for electronic transmission of results before the 2023 elections and had successfully used the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal during several off-cycle elections before extending the platform nationwide.
However, he acknowledged that the commission faced difficulties uploading presidential election results to the IReV portal during the 2023 general election.
“Unfortunately, this became very important in the light of the technical glitch experienced in uploading presidential election results to IReV. Let me assure you that we at INEC have learnt our lessons and improved our operations,” he said.
Zuru said subsequent elections, including governorship, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Area Council and bye-elections, had shown improvements in the commission’s use of technology.
“We want to use this opportunity to assure Nigerians in general, and voters in particular, that INEC will ensure that the 2027 general election shall be free, fair, credible, inclusive and transparent. Every valid vote will count. Voters will decide who governs them,” he said.
Addressing concerns over the technical problems and allegations of hacking during the 2023 presidential election, Zuru said INEC had moved beyond those challenges.
He said elections conducted since then had demonstrated significant progress in the commission’s ability to manage electronic results transmission.
“We’ve conducted several elections, bye-elections and governorship elections since the 2023 incidents, and everybody agrees that there is remarkable improvement,” he said.
He added that the recent Anambra governorship election and FCT Area Council elections showed that the commission had made progress in resolving earlier challenges.
Zuru, however, stressed that technology alone could not guarantee credible elections, noting that integrity among stakeholders remained essential.
“There are three important things: honesty, truth and sincerity. Once these things are there, technology will not be an issue,” he said.
The Director of Information and Communication Technology at INEC, Dr. Lawrence Bayode, said the commission had already tested its upgraded results transmission system during the FCT Area Council and Ekiti governorship elections.
He explained that results uploaded to the IReV platform during those elections were processed using Form EC8A, adding that the system would help ensure that only authentic polling unit results are transmitted.
“Our system has been piloted in the FCT and Ekiti elections. This is not something we are just introducing. It is something we have tested, and that is why we will deploy it for the forthcoming elections,” Bayode said.
He said the system was designed to reduce discrepancies by verifying that results transmitted from polling units matched the original documents generated at those locations.
At the event, Yiaga Africa presented a policy brief titled *Securing the Votes: Electronic Transmission and Collation of Election Results under Nigeria’s New Legal Framework*.
The organisation’s Executive Director, Samson Itodo, said while the Electoral Act 2026 had made electronic transmission of polling unit results mandatory, some operational gaps remained.
Itodo said polling unit results were uploaded to the IReV portal after backend validation rather than immediately after entry at polling units. He also noted that ward and local government collation results were not published on the platform.
According to him, these gaps limited public access to the results management process and contributed to doubts about election transparency.
Yiaga Africa recommended that INEC publish clear guidelines for electronic transmission, upload ward and local government collation results to the IReV portal, clarify the legally recognised version of Form EC8A in cases of discrepancies, update relevant regulations, develop a comprehensive results management manual and conduct nationwide mock exercises before the 2027 elections.
Responding to the recommendations, Zuru said INEC was considering a nationwide mock exercise ahead of the polls.
“We will not wait until one or two weeks before the election; we will try to do that much earlier,” he said.
The European Union Programme Manager for Democracy and Governance, Laolu Olawunmi, said public confidence in elections depended largely on how results were managed.
“Election results management is the stage where public trust is either built or broken,” she said.
Olawunmi urged INEC to strengthen technology testing, increase upload capacity, conduct simulations and provide more training for election officials. She also called for improved access for party agents and observers at collation centres.
Meanwhile, the National Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Yusuf Dantalle, said further reforms were still needed to strengthen Nigeria’s electoral system.
He noted that some political parties had increasingly adopted consensus candidates due to the high cost of conducting primaries and pledged that IPAC would continue engaging stakeholders on electoral reforms.
