The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has assured Nigerians that it has strengthened its election technology and operational processes to prevent a recurrence of the technical glitches experienced during the 2023 general election.
The assurance came as Yiaga Africa raised concerns over gaps in the country’s electronic election results management framework.
Yiaga Africa raised the concerns on Thursday at a policy roundtable on electronic transmission and collation of election results it organised in Abuja
Presenting a policy brief titled, “Securing the Vote through Electronic Transmission and Collation of Election Results,” Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, said although the Electoral Act 2026 had made electronic transmission of polling unit results mandatory, critical aspects of the process remained opaque.
According to Itodo, while polling unit results are uploaded to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal, the commission’s backend validation process is not publicly understood which he said has raising questions about transparency.
He also observed that only polling unit results (Form EC8A) are published on the portal, while ward (Form EC8B) and local government (Form EC8C) collation results remain inaccessible to the public, making independent verification of the collation process difficult.
Yiaga expressed concern over the existence of three versions of election results the physical Form EC8A, the scanned image uploaded to IReV and the electronically transmitted record—without a clearly defined legal hierarchy where discrepancies arise.
To improve public confidence ahead of the 2026 Osun State governorship election and the 2027 general election, the organisation urged INEC to publish a detailed protocol explaining how results move from polling units to the IReV portal, disclose the purpose and duration of the backend validation process, upload ward and local government collation results, publish accreditation figures alongside Form EC8A, and conduct publicly observable mock exercises before major elections.
Responding to the presentation, INEC’s Director of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Dr. Lawrence Bayode, disagreed with Yiaga’s assertion that the validation process lacked visibility.
,Bayode said Form EC8A was completed and verified at the polling unit, insisting that the electronic process merely complements the physical result sheet rather than replacing it.
“What the electronic system does is to validate and ensure that the polling unit result endorsed by the Presiding Officer and party agents is exactly the same as what is captured electronically. Everything is done right there at the polling unit,” he said.
He explained that the system automatically compares the number of accredited voters with the votes entered, preventing impossible figures from being uploaded.
“If 100 voters were accredited in a polling unit and somebody attempts to upload a result showing 1,000 votes, the system immediately rejects it because the accreditation data comes directly from the same device used for accreditation,” Bayode explained.
According to him, the system also employs geospatial validation and pattern recognition to ensure results are transmitted only from the designated polling units.
“If an election is conducted in the FCT and the system detects a result being uploaded from Lagos, should such a result be accepted? Of course not. That is why validation and pattern recognition are critical,” he added.
While acknowledging calls for greater transparency, Bayode maintained that INEC could not publicly disclose every component of its technological architecture because of security considerations.
Earlier, INEC National Commissioner, Prof. Abdullahi Zuru, who represented the Chairman of the commission, Prof. Joash Amupitan (SAN), assured Nigerians that lessons from the 2023 presidential election had informed major improvements in the commission’s electoral processes.
“We have no fears; not at all. That is why we are having this engagement today. We will discuss the issues we anticipate, suggest solutions and take it from there,” Zuru said.
Asked whether Nigerians could expect a repeat of the technical glitches that affected the uploading of presidential election results in 2023, he replied that the commission had demonstrated significant progress through subsequent elections.
“Since the 2023 general election, we have conducted several by-elections, governorship elections and the FCT elections. Everyone agrees there has been remarkable improvement in the conduct of these elections.
“The recent governorship elections in Ekiti and Anambra, as well as the FCT elections, are clear evidence that we have moved beyond the challenges we experienced previously,” he said.
Zuru also disclosed that INEC was considering Yiaga Africa’s recommendation to conduct mock election exercises much earlier than in previous election cycles.
National Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Dr. Yusuf Mamman Dantalle, commended INEC for deploying the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the IReV portal but urged the commission to prevent a repeat of the shortcomings witnessed during the 2023 presidential election.
Dantalle criticised provisions of the Electoral Act 2026 permitting manual collation where electronic transmission fails, arguing that there should be no substitute for full electronic transmission of election results.
He said IPAC would continue engaging with INEC ahead of the 2027 general election, maintaining that further reforms were necessary to strengthen public confidence in Nigeria’s electoral process.
