The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan (SAN), has assured Nigerians that technological improvements to the country’s electoral system have made ballot box snatching and manual manipulation of election results ineffective, expressing confidence that votes cast in the 2027 general elections will be protected.
Amupitan gave the assurance on Wednesday, July 1, in Abuja while receiving the Director-General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, during a courtesy visit to the INEC headquarters. The meeting focused on strengthening collaboration between both institutions on voter education ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The INEC chairman said the commission must begin intensive voter education well ahead of the elections, warning that voter apathy and the spread of misinformation remain major threats to the credibility of the electoral process. He said Nigeria’s current legal and technological framework had significantly strengthened the integrity of elections, making practices such as ballot box snatching and manual alteration of results obsolete.
“We need to teach them why their vote matters and how our new legal and technological safeguards protect their choices. We must look the rural farmer, the marketplace woman, and the disillusioned urban youth in the eye and explain to them, in the language they understand, that because of the current technological infrastructure, the era of snatching ballot boxes or rewriting results manually is gone,” he said.
Amupitan cited the February 21 Federal Capital Territory Area Council elections and the June 20 off-cycle governorship election in Ekiti State as examples of improvements in election administration. According to him, both elections recorded more than 90 per cent early opening of polling units, biometric accreditation using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), and timely uploading of results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).
Despite those achievements, he said the elections also exposed challenges, particularly low voter turnout and confusion among urban voters over polling unit splits and voter registration transfers.
“This is a clear indicator that while our technology is moving forward, civic familiarity with the evolving system is lagging. It is a loud diagnostic signal that far more needs to be done in the area of intensive, deep-rooted voter education, and it proves that we cannot afford to wait until the eve of the 2027 polls to start talking to our people,” he said.
The INEC chairman stressed that technology alone could not guarantee credible elections without an informed electorate. “We can purchase the finest BVAS machines, we can optimise the IReV to international standards, and we can map out the most logistical routes for material deployment. But all of these technological and administrative triumphs mean nothing if the citizens remain detached, cynical, or completely uneducated about the power of their votes,” he added.
Amupitan described the NOA as a critical partner in promoting democratic participation and called for a decentralised, grassroots voter education campaign. He also urged both agencies to collaborate in combating vote-buying and misinformation while equipping NOA officials with accurate knowledge of INEC’s electoral processes.
He pledged the commission’s full support for the partnership, saying INEC was ready to share resources, data and institutional expertise to ensure its success.
Earlier, NOA Director-General Lanre Issa-Onilu said stronger collaboration with INEC was necessary to address low voter turnout, noting that the number of Nigerians who vote during elections remains significantly lower than the number of registered voters.
He said the agency had intensified community-based advocacy and sought greater support from INEC to improve civic and voter education, encouraging Nigerians not only to participate in elections but also to remain engaged with the democratic process, including monitoring election-related court cases.
