Nigeria’s national voter register is approaching the 100 million mark ahead of the 2027 general elections, with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) recording 10,772,421 new registrants in its latest Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, disclosed this on Monday, September 7, 2026, in Lagos, while announcing the commission’s plan to deploy a real-time election readiness tracker to monitor preparations across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
Amupitan spoke at a two-day strategic operational workshop for INEC Administrative Secretaries, where he said the new tracker would provide the commission’s leadership with real-time information on the level of preparedness in each state.
According to a statement by INEC’s Director of Voter Education and Publicity, Victoria Eta-Messi, the platform will track key areas of election preparation, including logistics, recruitment and training of ad hoc personnel, electoral technology and other operational activities.
The system will be built around a standardised, Excel-based Administrative Secretary Master Operational Tracker Template linked to INEC’s Election Monitoring and Support Centre dashboard and Election Project Plan.
Amupitan said the initiative was designed to address the commission’s previous lack of a dedicated and uniform mechanism for monitoring the operational responsibilities of Administrative Secretaries across the country.
He said the framework would give Resident Electoral Commissioners, supervising National Commissioners, the Secretary to the Commission and INEC headquarters “instant visibility” into state-level preparedness.
The INEC chairman said the commission was determined to move away from last-minute preparations by replacing what he described as “reactive panic with proactive management.”
He disclosed that the latest CVR exercise, conducted in three phases between August 2025 and July 2026, produced 10,772,421 new registrations. However, he noted that the figures remained subject to verification through the Automated Biometric Identification System.
According to Amupitan, the National Register of Voters is now “approaching the 100 million mark.”
He also reaffirmed INEC’s commitment to ensuring that eligible Nigerians are not disenfranchised due to logistical challenges associated with the distribution of Permanent Voter Cards.
Amupitan identified the CVR as one of five major operational areas reviewed at the workshop, alongside logistics and materials management, electoral technology, optimisation of ad hoc staff and financial compliance.
He said the readiness tracker would not be limited to the 2027 elections but would become a permanent operational and onboarding framework for future Administrative Secretaries.
The INEC chairman said lessons from recent off-cycle elections, particularly the Osun State governorship election, were being incorporated into preparations for the 2027 polls.
According to him, disciplined logistics and functioning technology contributed to what the commission regarded as a transparent process during the Osun election.
“We are now working to replicate that standard nationally,” Amupitan said, adding that INEC had about six months to prepare for the 2027 general elections.
The presidential and National Assembly elections are scheduled for January 16, 2027, while the governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections are expected to take place on February 6, 2027.
Lagos State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Ayobami Salami, described the workshop as timely and commended the European Union, through its Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria programme, for supporting the exercise.
The Secretary to the Commission, Rose Oriaran-Anthony, said the workshop was intended to ensure that INEC headquarters and its state offices operated from a unified Election Project Plan.
She said state delegations were expected to leave the workshop with a logistics risk register, an ad hoc recruitment and deployment plan and a three-month stakeholder engagement plan.
At a separate South-West zonal interactive meeting and readiness assessment in Lagos, Amupitan warned that pressure on INEC ahead of the 2027 elections would be enormous.
“The eyes of 200 million Nigerians, and the world, are fixed on us,” he said.
The meeting, held at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Ikeja, marked the beginning of a six-zone tour by INEC to assess its level of preparedness for the elections.
Amupitan said the zonal engagements represented a departure from the traditional approach, in which election preparations were handled largely by directorates at the commission’s headquarters.
He stressed that the real test of INEC’s preparedness would not be in meeting rooms in Abuja but at local government areas, registration area centres and polling units nationwide.
The chairman identified voter apathy, public distrust, misinformation and disinformation as major threats ahead of the elections.
He said the competence and conduct of INEC field officers would remain the commission’s “strongest defence against false narratives.”
The commission is also refining its result management systems, including the recently introduced eEC8A, to strengthen verification of polling-unit results through the national collation centre.
Amupitan further warned INEC personnel against partisan conduct and administrative negligence, citing Section 26 of the Electoral Act, which requires relevant electoral and security personnel to take an oath of neutrality.
INEC said the South-West engagement would focus on logistics, technology, security, voter education, recruitment and stakeholder engagement as preparations for the 2027 general elections intensify.
