As Nigeria approaches the 2027 general elections, urgent attention must be given to the integrity of our electoral process. The 2023 elections exposed troubling realities: widespread vote manipulation, voter suppression, compromised technology, legal ambiguities, and post-election injustice.
Despite constitutional guarantees, power no longer truly resides with the people. The routine swearing-in of candidates before the conclusion of electoral petitions denies citizens genuine justice and renders elections performative.
Section 64(4)–(6) and Section 50(2) of the Electoral Act 2022 give INEC unchecked discretion over result transmission and voting methods—creating loopholes for manipulation; electronic voting lacks constitutional backing, making innovations like BVAS and IReV legally vulnerable; president’s power to appoint the INEC Chairman and RECs raises serious questions about INEC’s neutrality; electoral petitions are not concluded before inauguration, weakening faith in the judiciary; and the absence of a functional Electoral Offences Commission enables impunity for rigging and violence.