By Abubakar Yunusa
A civil society organisation, Kimpact Development Initiative (KDI), has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to enhance electoral transparency by upgrading key digital and procedural elements in election result management.
The recommendation was presented in Abuja on Friday during the public launch of the Ballot Integrity Report by KDI’s Team Lead, Bukola Idowu.
The report highlighted systemic issues in Nigeria’s electoral process and proposed solutions to strengthen integrity and public confidence.
The report urged INEC to upgrade Form EC8 by pre-recording the number of registered voters on official documents to prevent discrepancies at polling units and collation centres.
It also suggested a more rigorous verification process at each collation stage to detect and rectify arithmetic errors before finalising results. Other key recommendations included:A backend-generated accreditation summary attached to Form EC8A should be uploaded on the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal to prevent the alteration of accredited voter numbers during collation.
“The platform should allow result uploads beyond the polling unit level, ensuring real-time tracking at ward, local government, and state collation levels.
” INEC should maintain a clear, publicly accessible database even after elections, allowing citizens, political parties, and observers to compare results across collation stages.
“This feature, which allows overvoting confirmation on the IReV portal, was removed after the 2023 off-cycle elections. The report recommended its reinstatement.
“A dedicated online platform should be created before elections, allowing citizens, political parties, and observers to report irregularities directly to INEC for timely resolution.
” Officials found guilty of manipulating or mismanaging election results should be disqualified from future electoral duties.”
The report noted that despite technological advancements, such as the BVAS and IReV, challenges like voter registration mismatches, missing ballots, over-voting, and arithmetic errors continue to undermine election credibility.
Referencing the Edo and Ondo off-cycle governorship elections, the report cited cases where INEC-declared results did not align with figures on the IReV portal, raising concerns about data integrity.
It called for a clear legal framework to review discrepancies between IReV results and collation centre reports before final result declarations.
To address these issues, the report recommended further amendments to the Electoral Act to enhance result management and impose stricter penalties for electoral malpractice. It proposed mandatory digital collation for elections with over 500,000 registered voters to improve accuracy and transparency.
“Standardised result announcement timelines to prevent undue delays that could create opportunities for manipulation.
“Automatic INEC review triggers if voter turnout exceeds 90% or if discrepancies between IReV and collation centre figures are significant.”
Speaking on the sidelines of the report presentation, Bukola Idowu acknowledged improvements in IReV’s result upload speed compared to the 2023 general election.
However, he pointed out poor training among INEC’s ad hoc staff, which often led to arithmetic errors.
He stressed that discrepancies, including over-voting and missing ballots, resulted from inadequacies in result management.
“In Edo State, for instance, the report identified approximately 29,000 unaccounted votes, raising concerns about result accuracy.”
Idowu further warned that the 2027 general election would demand a flawless process, stating:
“Nigerians will not tolerate a flawed electoral process in 2027. They want an election where their votes count, not one riddled with errors and legal technicalities. The election outcome should be determined at the ballot, not in the courtroom.”
Delivering a keynote speech on “Protecting the Vote: Ensuring Electoral Integrity Through Credible Result Management”, Prof. Adele Jinadu acknowledged that elections are complex processes prone to human errors.
He argued that while some mistakes are inevitable, vigilance is essential to prevent deliberate manipulation. He advocated for a “nightwatchman approach” where citizens actively monitor elections at polling unit levels to safeguard integrity.
“People must organise themselves at ward and polling unit levels to ensure elections are not violated,” Jinadu said.
