The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said the nation’s register of voters is approaching a 100 million mark.
Nigeria registered voters before the 2023 general election was 93,469,008.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, at the South West zonal interactive meeting and readiness assessment for the 2027 general election in Lagos on Monday, said the commission registered a additional 10,772,421 new registrants between August 2025 and July 2026, during the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise.
He however said this is subject to ongoing Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) verification.
Prof. Amupitan disclosed that INEC introduced, for the first time, an online registration portal during the third phase of the CVR exercise, to ease access for eligible voters, as well as a new printable Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) technology, which he said, was first deployed during the Osun State election, in line with Section 18(1) of the Electoral Act.
He reaffirmed the commission’s commitment to ensuring that no eligible Nigerian is disenfranchised due to logistical bottlenecks in PVC distribution.
The Chairman said INEC was refining its result management systems, including the recently introduced eEC8A, to strengthen the verifiability of results from the polling unit to the national collation centre.
He restated the commission’s zero-tolerance on partisan conduct and administrative negligence among staff, and cited Section 26 of the Electoral Act, which mandates an oath of neutrality for electoral officers, presiding officers, returning officers, and security personnel, involved in elections.
Prof. Amupitan disclosed that the commission was finalising a new salary and welfare package for the staff and Resident Electoral Commissioners, as well as the newly created Consolidated Election Management Body Salary Structure (CEMBSS), which took effect from January 1, 2026, that allows a 150 per cent increase in overhead allocations to states.
He disclosed that the commission has introduced a dedicated, uniform mechanism for tracking the operational duties of Administrative Secretaries to bridge institutional gap.
According to him, once deployed, the tracker will give the RECs, supervising National Commissioners, the Secretary to the commission, and the headquarters, instant visibility into material distribution, ad-hoc staff training and state-level readiness, replacing what he called “reactive panic with proactive management.”
The innovation, he added, would outlive the 2027 exercise, and serve as a permanent onboarding blueprint for future generations of Administrative Secretaries.
Prof. Amupitan likened the initiative to the INEC’s drive to keep the voter register clean and PVC collection seamless as enrolment closes in on 100 million.
He said the tracker initiative was build on lessons drawn from recent off-cycle elections, including the Osun State, where disciplined logistics and functioning technology delivered a transparent outcome, and stated that INEC is working to replicate that standard nationally, in the six-month window remaining before the 2027 general election.
Director, Planning and Monitoring, Mrs Helen Ajayi, told participants that the interactive meeting was designed around four key goals – to assess the state of preparedness of the South-West states through the presentation of situation reports on logistics, ad hoc staff recruitment, technology, security, training, voter education and stakeholder engagement; to identify the operational and logistical challenges within the states that could affect the successful conduct of the 2027 general election; to provide departmental updates on voter registration, the collection of PVCs and the deployment and management of other ICT resources; and to align all staff with the Commission’s Code of Conduct as well as its operational and logistics readiness ahead of the elections.
