INEC UNVEILS REAL-TIME TRACKER TO MONITOR 2027 ELECTION READINESS
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By: Fasasi Hammad
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is set to deploy a real-time election readiness tracker to monitor preparations for the 2027 general elections across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
The digital monitoring system will provide INEC leadership with instant updates on logistics, recruitment and training of ad hoc personnel, electoral technology and other critical preparations ahead of the polls.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, disclosed this on Monday in Lagos during a two-day strategic operational workshop for administrative secretaries.
According to a statement signed by the commission’s Director of Voter Education and Publicity, Victoria Eta-Messi, the initiative is aimed at preventing last-minute operational failures and improving coordination ahead of the 2027 elections.
The statement said the workshop would produce a standardised Excel-based Administrative Secretary Master Operational Tracker Template, which would be linked to INEC’s Election Monitoring and Support Centre dashboard and Election Project Plan.
Amupitan said INEC had historically lacked a dedicated and uniform system for monitoring the operational responsibilities of administrative secretaries across the country.
He said the new tracker would give Resident Electoral Commissioners, supervising national commissioners, the Secretary to the Commission and the headquarters “instant visibility” into the level of preparedness in each state.
The tracker will cover areas including the distribution of election materials, recruitment and training of ad hoc personnel and overall state-level readiness.
Amupitan said the initiative was designed to move the commission away from a last-minute approach to election preparation, describing its objective as replacing “reactive panic with proactive management.”
The INEC chairman also disclosed that the Continuous Voter Registration exercise, conducted in three phases between August 2025 and July 2026, recorded 10,772,421 new registrants, subject to ongoing Automated Biometric Identification System verification.
He said the National Register of Voters was approaching the 100 million mark, reaffirming the commission’s commitment to ensuring that no eligible Nigerian is disenfranchised due to logistical challenges in the distribution of Permanent Voter Cards.
According to Amupitan, CVR is one of five major operational areas being reviewed at the workshop. Others are logistics and materials management, electoral technology, optimisation of ad hoc personnel and financial compliance.
The chairman said the tracker would not be limited to the 2027 elections, but would serve as a permanent operational and onboarding framework for future administrative secretaries.
He said INEC was drawing lessons from recent off-cycle elections, particularly the Osun State governorship election, where disciplined logistics and functional technology contributed to what the commission considered a transparent process.
“We are now working to replicate that standard nationally,” Amupitan said, noting that INEC had about six months to prepare for the 2027 general elections.
The presidential and National Assembly elections are scheduled for January 16, 2027, while governorship and state House of Assembly elections are scheduled for February 6.
The Lagos State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Ayobami Salami, described the workshop as timely and commended the European Union, through its Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria programme, for supporting the exercise.
The Secretary to the Commission, Mrs Rose Oriaran-Anthony, said the workshop would ensure that INEC headquarters and state offices operated from the same Election Project Plan.
She added that each state delegation was expected to leave the workshop with a logistics risk register, an ad hoc recruitment and deployment plan, as well as a three-month stakeholder engagement plan.
Meanwhile, Amupitan warned INEC personnel that the pressure on the commission ahead of the 2027 elections would be enormous.
At a separate South-West zonal interactive meeting and readiness assessment in Lagos on Monday, the chairman described INEC staff as being on the frontline of Nigeria’s democracy.
“The eyes of 200 million Nigerians, and the world, are fixed on us,” he said.
The meeting, held at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Ikeja, marked the beginning of a six-zone tour by the commission to assess preparations for the 2027 elections.
Amupitan said the exercise represented a departure from more than two decades of administrative practice, during which zonal preparations were largely handled by headquarters directorates.
He said the true test of INEC’s preparedness would not be in meeting rooms in Abuja but at local government areas, registration area centres and polling units across the country.
The chairman identified voter apathy, public distrust and the spread of misinformation and disinformation as major threats to the 2027 elections.
He said the competence and conduct of INEC field officers would remain the commission’s “strongest defence against false narratives.”
The commission also said it was refining its result management systems, including the recently introduced eEC8A, to improve the verification of polling-unit results through the national collation centre.
Amupitan further warned INEC personnel against partisan conduct and administrative negligence, citing Section 26 of the Electoral Act, which requires relevant electoral and security personnel to take an oath of neutrality.
The commission said the South-West engagement would focus on logistics, technology, security, voter education, recruitment and stakeholder engagement as preparations intensify for the 2027 polls.
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