The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared that the era of ballot box snatching and manual manipulation of election results is gone, assuring Nigerians that current technological safeguards are robust enough to protect every vote cast in the 2027 general elections.
The declaration was made on Wednesday, July 1 in Abuja during a courtesy visit to the INEC headquarters by the Director General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu. Both institutions used the occasion to deepen collaboration on voter education ahead of the 2027 polls.
The INEC chairman, noting that the presidential election will hold on January 16 and governorship polls on February 6, 2027, said the commission must begin intensive civic engagement immediately, warning that voter apathy and disinformation remain dangerous threats to the integrity of the electoral process.
“We need to teach them why their vote matters and how our new legal and technological safeguards protect their choices,” the chairman stated. “We must look the rural farmer, the marketplace woman, and the disillusioned urban youth in the eye and explain to them, in the language they understand, that because of the current technological infrastructure, the era of snatching ballot boxes or rewriting results manually is gone.”
