The chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Joash Amupitan, has appealed to Nigerians to have confidence in his leadership, assuring them that he will deliver free, fair, credible and inclusive elections in 2027.
Amupitan gave the assurance on Thursday during a dialogue organised by the Kimpact Development Initiative, KDI, at Chatham House in London, United Kingdom.
Speaking against the backdrop of concerns over the credibility of the 2023 general election, the INEC chairman admitted that technical problems during the exercise had affected public confidence in the commission.
“The 2023 general election significantly affected public confidence in INEC, and the commission is still working to rebuild the trust of Nigerians,” he said.
Amupitan, however, assured Nigerians that measures had been introduced to prevent inaccurate polling unit results from appearing on the INEC Result Viewing Portal, IReV, in 2027.
“The major problems we identified in 2023 occurred during the collation of results. We have now introduced technical measures to detect errors and prevent inaccurate results from being uploaded to IReV,” he said.
“We have introduced safeguards to ensure that any result that is inaccurate at the polling unit will not be uploaded to IReV. Nigerians should be able to trust the results they see on the portal,” he said.
“The recent off-cycle governorship elections in Anambra and Osun states demonstrated improvements in our performance, as we were able to declare the results the day after voting,” he added.
The INEC chairman also announced that the commission would conduct a nationwide mock accreditation and voting exercise on November 28, 2026, to test its preparations for the 2027 general election.
Amupitan further maintained that his previous involvement in legal cases involving political disputes would not affect his neutrality as electoral umpire.
“My loyalty is solely to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Electoral Act,” he said.
2027: Trust me to deliver credible elections - Amupitan tells Nigerians