The Independent National Electoral Commission has fixed November 28, 2026 for a nationwide mock election and unveiled fresh technical safeguards to ensure that only accurate polling unit results are uploaded to its Results Viewing Portal, IReV, ahead of the 2027 general elections, in a bid to prevent a repeat of the glitches that marred the 2023 polls.
The Chairman of the Commission, Professor Joash Amupitan, disclosed this on Thursday during a dialogue at Chatham House in London, organised in partnership with the Kimpact Development Initiative, where he said the Commission has built strict validation controls into its systems after an assessment of the 2023 elections exposed weaknesses in result management, particularly at collation centres.
Amupitan explained that the core problem of election result management in Nigeria is not at the polling unit but at the collation centres, noting that in 2023 some inaccurate results and results showing over-voting still found their way onto the portal.
Under the new arrangement, a polling unit result that is inaccurate or carries figures indicating over-voting will be blocked from upload to IReV altogether, rather than being published and corrected later.
He said once a result appears on IReV under the upgraded system, citizens can trust what they see, and collation will become a transparent formality.
To test the upgrades, the nationwide mock exercise will run across all states of the federation to simulate the presidential election and verify that both accreditation and electronic result transmission are working as expected.
The Commission also said it has procured additional Bimodal Voter Accreditation System devices, reduced the maximum number of voters assigned per BVAS machine from 1,250 to 850, and is constructing climate-controlled storage facilities across all states to prevent the heat-related malfunctions recorded in 2023.
Amupitan, who acknowledged that the controversies of 2023 created a significant trust deficit for INEC, urged Nigerians to trust the Commission to deliver free, fair and credible elections in 2027.
Noting that the presidential and National Assembly elections are scheduled for January 16, 2027, while governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections will follow on February 6, 2027.
