By Omeiza Ajayi, Abuja
Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Joash Ojo Amupitan SAN, has declared that the era of ballot box snatching and manual manipulation of election results is gone, assuring Nigerians that current technological safeguards are robust enough to protect every vote cast in the 2027 general elections.
Amupitan made the declaration on Wednesday in Abuja when he received the Director General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, on a courtesy visit to INEC headquarters.
Both institutions used the occasion to deepen collaboration on voter education ahead of the 2027 polls.
The INEC chairman, who recalled that the presidential election is held on January 16 and governorship polls on February 6, 2027, said the commission must begin intensive civic engagement immediately, warning that voter apathy and disinformation remain dangerous threats to the integrity of the electoral process.
He said, “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.”
While acknowledging significant operational achievements recorded during the February 21 Federal Capital Territory FCT Area Council elections and the June 20 off-cycle Governorship election in Ekiti State — including over 90 per cent early opening of polling units, biometric authentication via the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), and swift result uploads to the INEC Result Viewing Portal IReV — the chairman said both polls exposed a troubling undercurrent of voter apathy and widespread confusion among urban voters over polling unit splits and 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.
Amupitan stressed that INEC cannot build a robust democracy in isolation, noting that advanced technology alone means nothing without an informed electorate.
He said, “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.”
Describing the NOA as Nigeria’s premier organisation for civic orientation and the visit as “a vital meeting of minds”, the INEC boss said the two institutions share a constitutional responsibility to educate Nigerians on democratic culture and must co-create a decentralised, grassroots voter education campaign that goes beyond telling people when to vote.
He called for joint campaigns against vote-buying and misinformation and urged that NOA field officers be equipped with accurate technical knowledge of INEC’s operations so they can serve as trusted community ambassadors ahead of the elections.
“Together, INEC and the NOA must rewrite this narrative. We need to co-create a decentralised, grassroots voter education campaign that goes beyond simply telling people when to vote,” Amupitan said, adding that the collaboration between both agencies is “not a secondary option; it is an absolute necessity.”
Welcoming the NOA DG’s leadership and his grasp of modern strategic communication, Amupitan said civic orientation in 2026 cannot rely on old, top-down bureaucratic methods, stressing that engagement must be digital, relational, and youth-focused.
He pledged the commission’s full institutional support for the partnership. “Our doors are wide open. We are ready to pool our resources, share our data, and give your teams all the institutional support required to make this collaboration a resounding success,” he said.
Earlier, Issa-Onilu stressed the necessity of collaborating with INEC, lamenting that the number of voters who come out on election days is dangerously low when compared to the number of registered voters.
“We are going into communities with our advocacy to the people.
“We both have in our hands civic education and voter education. We humbly seek support from INEC, which we are already having, but we believe it can be better. We need to increase the number of people who come out to vote. Those who come out to vote are very low compared to those on the register. We need to even let them know everything beyond the elections to ensure that Nigerians can keep track of cases in court,” he said.
