The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it has no preferred candidate or political party ahead of the 2027 general elections, pledging to uphold the rule of law and respect the will of Nigerian voters.
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INEC Chairman Joash Amupitan made the declaration on Friday while receiving an ECOWAS pre-election fact-finding mission, led by former Sierra Leone Vice-President Victor Bockarie Foh, in Abuja.
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“INEC under my watch has no candidate and no political party,” Amupitan said. “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 the commission was carrying out readiness assessments across Nigeria’s geopolitical zones as part of preparations for the polls.
Amupitan said the 2027 elections would be conducted across 8,809 registration areas and all 774 local government areas. He added that Nigeria’s voter register had surpassed 103 million voters and that INEC had completed nine of 14 major statutory milestones in its revised election timetable.
He also said the commission had completed three phases of Continuous Voter Registration and the nationwide display of the preliminary voter register.
The INEC chairman said the commission would deploy the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for fingerprint and facial biometric accreditation, as well as electronic result-management systems.
He said INEC had introduced the eEC8A electronic verification platform to complement result verification through the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV). The commission is also working with security agencies under the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) to ensure adequate security during the elections.
Foh said the ECOWAS mission was assessing electoral preparedness in member states approaching general elections and identifying areas where the regional body could provide support. He said the exercise was in line with Article 31 of the ECOWAS Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance and Article 53 of the ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework.
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