INEC Chairman, Joash Amupitan
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Joash O. Amupitan (SAN), has disclosed that the commission will issue a revised timetable for the 2027 General Election following the enactment of the new Electoral Act 2026.
He stated this on Wednesday during a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) and the swearing-in of Dr. Chukwu Chukwu-Emeka Joseph as REC representing Abia State.
President Bola Tinubu recently assented to the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2026 barely 24 hours after it was controversially passed by the National Assembly.
Prior to then, INEC had announced that the presidential and National Assembly elections would take place on February 20, 2027, while governorship and state Houses of Assembly polls were scheduled for March 6, 2027.
The timetable drew criticism from sections of the public, particularly Muslim groups, who argued that the proposed dates clashed with the holy month of Ramadan.
The amended Clause 28 now provides that INEC shall, not later than 300 days before the date fixed for the conduct of an election under this Act, publish a notice in each state of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory.
Amupitan explained that although INEC had issued a Notice of Election on February 13, 2026, it was issued under the provisions of the old Electoral Act, as the new law had not yet been enacted.
“I must not fail to inform you that we now have a new Electoral Act, 2026. We had on 13th February 2026 issued a Notice of Election before the new Act was enacted. The Notice was issued under the old law. With the introduction of the new Electoral Act, we have to make some adjustments and issue a revised Timetable for the 2027 General Election”, Amupitan stated.
The INEC chairman noted that the development would require procedural alignments to ensure full compliance with the new legal framework guiding the conduct of elections in the country.
He also disclosed that the commission would soon commence a comprehensive Voters Revalidation Exercise aimed at further sanitising the national register ahead of the 2027 polls.
According to him, the clean-up exercise, which was extensively discussed during the commission’s retreat in Lagos in January, is part of efforts to strengthen the integrity of the voter register and enhance public confidence in the electoral process.
Amupitan reminded the RECs that the second phase of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise, which commenced on January 5, 2026, is ongoing and will run until April 17, 2026.
He added that the entire CVR cycle is scheduled to conclude on August 30, 2026.
The meeting came on the heels of the recently concluded Area Council elections in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and bye-elections in select constituencies in Kano and Rivers states, which. Amupitan described as largely peaceful and successfully concluded.
The INEC chairman also addressed operational matters raised during the FCT polls, including delayed openings of polling units, which he described as unacceptable and damaging to public confidence.
He said staff and logistical failures identified in the exercise would be investigated and, if necessary, sanctioned under commission regulations.
Amupitan praised the generally peaceful conduct of the elections but acknowledged “ugly incidents” at some collation centres, urging stronger coordination with security agencies to prevent such occurrences in future exercises.
The INEC chairman also highlighted improvements introduced into the commission’s result management system, noting that experience has shown that the most vulnerable stage of the electoral process is not voting at the polling units but the collation of results at various levels.
To address this, he said, additional safeguards have been integrated into the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) to prevent manipulation of results before transmission to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).
He said under the strengthened procedure, the Presiding Officer is required to capture and upload an image of the completed Form EC8A to IReV and simultaneously enter the scores of each political party directly into the BVAS device.
According to him, the BVAS now performs internal validation checks to ensure that total votes entered do not exceed the number of accredited voters, that figures are mathematically consistent, and that any instance of over-voting is automatically flagged and cannot be finalised.
He said the enhanced system was tested during the FCT Area Council election and the Kano and Rivers State constituency polls, where uploaded results were confirmed to be accurate, with about 97 per cent of FCT results already available on IReV.
The Guardian
