November 1, (THEWILL) – Political parties and stakeholders are justifying their doubts about the preparedness of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for the conduct of a free, fair and transparent elections in 2027, following two recent actions by the Commission that they claim are deliberate acts of sabotage.
The issue deals with the Commission’s delayed publishing of the digital voter register online in strict adherence to provisions of the Electoral Act and the discovery that, when it was eventually published due to public pressure, it was found to include fake AI-generated voters, as now officially confirmed by the Director of Information and Communication Technology (ICT, Dr. Lawrence Bayode. There are allegedly at least 30 million fake entries in the register out of the officially declared 103 million plus names in the document published by INEC. The second is the recently published list of governorship and assembly candidates for the upcoming election.
PARTIES, STAKEHOLDERS’ REACTIONS
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Fake AI generated Voter Register
“AI is not a provision in the Electoral Act, so why is INEC using it to register voters?” National Publicity Secretary of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, Osa Director, told THEWILL from campaign grounds in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State on Friday. “We have repeatedly said that we are not interested in the introduction of AI in whatever form or guise during the coming election. It is another form of sophisticated rigging. They know that Nigerians want free and fair polls and would not tolerate glitches in the system again, so they have gone sophisticated, using AI. They should rather use AI in solving the problems of Nigeria.
“By Monday, we are going to make an official request and decide as a party and, if possible, use legal means to restrain the Commission,” he added.
His counterpart in the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi is equally alarmed at the occurrence. Speaking to THEWILL in a brief interview, he said the party has always maintained that INEC was not ready for the upcoming election.
“We have strong reasons to believe that they are deliberately sabotaging this election because an election is like pregnancy. It does not take you by surprise. You know that in nine months, you should be expecting a baby. So, you know that every four years you should prepare for a general election. Why then is this issue coming up now? It is deliberate sabotage,” he said.
The ADC also condemned INEC’s failure to publish the preliminary voters’ register online within the statutory timeframe stipulated by Section 19(1) of the Electoral Act 2026, which requires the register to be made available for public scrutiny not later than 90 days before the general election.
The party noted that Section 19(5) expressly makes failure by an INEC official to comply with the publication requirement a criminal offence, punishable by a fine, imprisonment, or both.
“We are beginning to wonder whether INEC is intentionally trying to make itself incompetent. Because, how else do you explain an electoral umpire that had, at least, three years to prepare for elections, but is suddenly unable or unwilling to produce a credible voters’ register in accordance with the strict requirements of the law? At what point should we stop seeing these repeated failures by INEC as sheer incompetence and start to view it as deliberate acts of sabotage?”
The ADC warned that INEC’s conduct raises legitimate concerns about its willingness to comply with other mandatory provisions of the Electoral Act on Election Day that could make the election credible.
“If INEC can disregard the Electoral Act today, what assurance do Nigerians have that it will obey the law on Election Day? What stops INEC from waking up on election morning to announce that it will not use BVAS, or that it will not use serialised ballot papers, or that it has decided to disregard some other mandatory safeguard? An electoral umpire that regards compliance with the law guiding publication of voter registers as discretionary cannot be trusted to enforce the same law when the stakes are higher.”
Expatiating further, Director of Strategic Communication of the ADC, Phrank Shaibu, questioned how the Commission’s database could be so easily breached by fifth columnists within, why the culprits have not been identified, arrested and prosecuted and why, more tellingly, the ICT Director would publicly express helplessness over the criminal breach of the Commission’s system.
“INEC has admitted that some AI-generated images are on the voters’ register and that registration officers introduced irregularities across the country. A commission charged with protecting Nigerians’ votes has acknowledged that its own system was compromised by those entrusted to operate it. This is a catastrophic failure of leadership and operational safeguards,” he said in a statement at the weekend, adding: “Professor Joash Amupitan, through Bayode Lawrence, says INEC knows what its officers did and how they tampered with the register, yet claims it does not know why. That is a disgraceful evasion, not an answer. If INEC knows how the register was compromised, it must disclose the evidence, identify every officer involved and explain why they have not been suspended and prosecuted. Prof. Amupitan cannot admit systemic misconduct, withhold the perpetrators’ identities and expect Nigerians to accept ignorance as an excuse. He must account for this failure now.”
He demanded a full audit of disputed records by accredited independent experts, political parties, civil society actors and credible international observers and called on the Commission to disclose the identities of companies contracted to produce sensitive electoral materials. Failure to do so will lead the party to institute legal action to compel the Commission to comply with standards of transparency.
“If INEC refuses to disclose the truth, we will approach the courts to compel it. Every official found to have compromised the integrity of the voters’ register must face the full wrath of the law,” he said, adding, “INEC cannot demand public trust, while concealing evidence and shielding compromised operatives. It must name the culprits, unmask the contractors and submit the voter database and electoral materials to independent forensic verification. Until then, its public assurances remain hollow. The credibility of the 2027 general election is on the line.”
In his reaction, Spokesperson of the Labour Party, Ken Asogwa, challenged Amupitan to live up to his reputation as an accomplished professor of law, a distinguished academician and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN.
“Since the inception of electoral commissions, from the Federal Electoral Commission, FEDECO, to the National Electoral Commission, NEC, and National Electoral Commission of Nigeria, NECON, to the present INEC, we have never had a chairman who had this combination of an intimidating CV to spearhead an electoral commission. This AI issue speaks volumes about how prepared the Commission is going into the upcoming election. We are not talking about negligible names but millions of voters,” he told THEWILL.
Efforts to get a similar reaction from the APC failed as the phone number of its spokesperson, Felix Morka, went into busy mode after it initially rang.
Yiaga Africa, a renowned election monitoring group and democracy advocate in Africa, shared a thought on the issue on its confirmed Facebook page, thus: ‘As our Election Manipulation Risk Index (EMRI) shows, tampering with the voter register has always been a tool for election manipulation used by politicians and compromised INEC officials. In the lead-up to the 2023 elections, there were confirmed cases of padding of the voter register. Some INEC officials implicated in these irregularities were reportedly investigated, yet the public never received an account of the disciplinary measures taken against those implicated. In 2026, we seem to be witnessing a disturbing recurrence of the same problems. Will anyone be held accountable for manipulating or compromising the voter register?”
2) Disqualification of Candidates:
Some parties have equally raised the alarm over the Commission’s clearance of governorship and assembly candidates following its review of complaints over the final lists of candidates for the 2027 governorship and State House of Assembly elections.
The commission had published the names of presidential, National Assembly, governorship and state Houses of Assembly candidates on its website on October 10, 2026. Some governorship and House of Assembly candidates were disqualified, forcing the parties to petition for review. For the NDC, its governorship candidates in Kano, Ogun, Kebbi, Kaduna and Cross River were disqualified. ADC had its Cross River governorship candidate disqualified. Ogun State PDP governorship candidate was equally affected.
In submitting its review publicly last week, the Commission upheld 41 of the 69 petitions challenging the final list of governorship candidates for the 2027 general election, while it rejected 28 others
Former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, was cleared to contest in Gombe State. The commission rejected a petition by the PDP governorship candidate in Ogun State, Ladi Adebutu, seeking a review of his exclusion from the list, while the candidacy of the NDC governorship candidate in Kano State, Abdulsalam Gwarzo, remains subject to the outcome of pending court proceedings.Chairman of INEC’s Information and Voter Education Committee, Mohammed Kudu Haruna, disclosed the decisions in a statement, explaining that the petitions were submitted by 12 political parties across 26 states.
According to the commission, the complaints concerned the omission of political parties, the inclusion of candidates whose names were not contained in membership registers submitted by their parties and alleged cases of multiple nominations.
Haruna said INEC examined the complaints against its records and applicable legal provisions before reaching its decisions.
“Following a review of the complaints, relevant records and applicable legal provisions, the Commission found merit in some representations and approved the inclusion of affected candidates and their political parties, while complaints found to be without merit were declined,” he said.
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Haruna stated that the final lists of candidates would be published on the Commission’s website. The document signed by the Secretary of INEC, Mrs Rose Ariaran-Anthony, was eventually published on October 31, 2026. In it, THEWILL discovered that the affected NDC candidates were cleared except Gwarzo, whose name was listed with a notation (court order) in the remarks column. For the ADC, its Cross Rivers Candidate has also been cleared. PDP’s governorship candidate in Ogun State, Adebutu’s name was not included in the register.
NDC’s Director said the party had taken legal action on the matter. Efforts to get a reaction from the PDP officials in Ogun failed as at press time. Mr Afolabi Orekoya, media aide to Adebutu, promised to grant an interview upon request but failed to answer subsequent calls. Messages sent to the confirmed WhatsApp number of Deputy Governorship candidate, Alhaja Lateefat Oyeyemi Kemi Olasupo, got no response.
But a source close to the governorship candidate confided in THEWILL that his disqualification is orchestrated and dismissed claims that Adebutu’s travail may be traced to his alignment with the Taminu Turaki faction of the party rather than the Nyesom Wike led group, which is recognized by INEC.
“It is a weak and insane argument. If that is so, why are the candidates of the party for the National Assembly and House of Assembly cleared by INEC, the source said, adding that, “The list of all the party’s candidates in Ogun State was submitted to INEC; why approve some and leave out one?. The man is the one financing the party in the state.” When asked what the way forward is, he simply said, “We are working on it by all means possible, and by the Grace of God we will conquer.”
By Saturday evening, however, THEWILL spoke with Haruna Mohammed, National Publicity Secretary of the PDP. He said the party submitted Adebutu’s name alongside other candidates to the Commission and wondered why the Commission would turn around to say his name was not on the list.
“INEC should explain to us why Adebutu’s name is missing from the approved list of governorship candidates. The same thing was said about Pantami and his case was resolved. The party will resolve it. However, by Monday, I will have a proper context for the omission after consulting with the relevant department charged with handling such occurrences.”
INEC CONFIRMS THE FAKE AI GENERATED NAMES IN REGISTER
INEC’s Director of Information and Communication Technology, Dr Lawrence Bayode, disclosed at the weekend during an appearance on Arise Television that some registration officers of the Commission across the country “used their login details to introduce questionable records into the database.”
“We have registration officers in the field. And these registration officers, they have login details to log into the system. So what we have found is that some of these registration officers, not all of them now, some of them across the states nationwide, they’ve done different things to bring these irregularities onto the register. Some of these pictures are AI-generated. Some of them are not AI-generated, but show very bad registration. And this thing got into the register by the registration officers because they have access to register people,” he said.
When asked how the Commission detected the anomaly and why the said officers violated the system, he replied, “When the ABIS was run on the system, we saw these people. We know what they did. We know how they did it. But honestly, I don’t know why.” He promised ICT department would clean up the register before the end of the mandatory 90-day timeline.
AMUPITAN VOWS TO DELIVER ON FREE, FAIR POLL
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has assured the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) that the Commission is committed to conducting a credible, transparent and peaceful 2027 general election.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Amupitan, SAN, said he gave the assurance while receiving the ECOWAS Pre-Election Fact-Finding Mission, led by former Vice-President of Sierra Leone, His Excellency Victor Bockarie Foh, at the Commission’s National Headquarters in Abuja at the weekend.
He described the 2027 general election as a pivotal milestone in Nigeria’s democratic journey since 1999, stressing that their successful conduct would have significant implications for democratic stability and consolidation across West Africa.
According to him, the Commission had successfully completed nine of the 14 major statutory milestones contained in its revised timetable and schedule of activities for the elections, three phases of the Continuous Voter Registration exercise and the physical display of the Preliminary Register of Voters nationwide. Providing details of the scale of the electoral exercise, Prof. Amupitan said INEC would deploy personnel and technological resources across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, covering 774 Local Government Areas, 8,809 Registration Areas and 176,846 polling units.
He said the Commission had adopted a field-driven approach to assessing its preparedness, conducting zonal readiness assessment tours across the country’s geopolitical zones.
On technology, Amupitan reaffirmed INEC’s commitment to deploying the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for fingerprint and facial biometric accreditation, alongside electronic result management systems.
He also highlighted the introduction of the eEC8A electronic verification platform, which, according to him, would complement transparent result management and verification through the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).
On election security, Amupitan said the Commission was working with relevant security agencies through the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) to strengthen security arrangements ahead of the polls. The INEC chairman called for stronger ECOWAS collaboration in deploying long-term and short-term election observers, sharing technical expertise and addressing emerging challenges such as electoral disinformation, logistics and inclusive voter education.
He also urged the regional body to sustain diplomatic engagement with political parties, civil society organisations and other stakeholders to promote peaceful campaigns and respect for democratic commitments. The INEC Chairman maintained that the Commission remained institutionally neutral, declaring: “INEC under my watch has no candidate and no political party.”
“Our sole allegiance is to the rule of law, the sovereign will of the Nigerian electorate, and the democratic progress of our nation,” he said.
Amos Esele is the Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.
