The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will issue a revised timetable and schedule for the 2027 General Elections following the recent enactment of the Electoral Act 2026, INEC Chairman Prof. Joash O. Amupitan (SAN) has announced.
Amupitan made the disclosure on Wednesday during a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) at INEC headquarters, where he also swore in Dr. Chukwu Chukwu-Emeka Joseph as the new REC for Abia State.
President Bola Tinubu signed the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2026 into law just 24 hours after its controversial passage by the National Assembly.
The new law introduces key changes, including an amended Clause 28 requiring INEC to publish a Notice of Election not later than 300 days before any scheduled poll.
Under the previous timetable announced by INEC, presidential and National Assembly elections were set for February 20, 2027, with governorship and state assembly polls slated for March 6, 2027.
The dates faced backlash, particularly from Muslim groups who argued they overlapped with the holy month of Ramadan.
The chairman clarified that INEC’s earlier Notice of Election, issued on February 13, 2026, was based on the old Electoral Act, as the amendment had not yet been passed.
“With the introduction of the new Electoral Act 2026, we have to make some adjustments and issue a revised Timetable for the 2027 General Election,” Amupitan stated.
He emphasized that the commission must now align all procedures to fully comply with the updated legal framework.
Amupitan also revealed plans for a comprehensive Voters Revalidation Exercise to further clean up the national register ahead of 2027.
The initiative, discussed extensively at the commission’s January retreat in Lagos, aims to strengthen the integrity of the voter database and boost public trust in the electoral process.
He reminded RECs that the second phase of the ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR), which began on January 5, 2026, will continue until April 17, 2026, with the full CVR cycle concluding on August 30, 2026.
Reflecting on recent elections, including the FCT Area Council polls and bye-elections in Kano and Rivers states, Amupitan described them as largely peaceful and successful.
However, he condemned delays in opening polling units, calling them unacceptable and harmful to public confidence, and promised investigations and sanctions where necessary for logistical or staff failures.
While praising the overall conduct, he acknowledged “ugly incidents” at some collation centres and called for better coordination with security agencies to prevent future disruptions.
The chairman highlighted significant upgrades to INEC’s result management system, noting that collation remains the most vulnerable stage of the electoral process.
To counter manipulation risks, new safeguards have been built into the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS):
Presiding Officers must now capture and upload an image of the completed Form EC8A directly to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).
Party scores are entered simultaneously into the BVAS device.
The system performs real-time internal validation checks to ensure total votes do not exceed accredited voters, figures are mathematically consistent, and over-voting is automatically flagged and blocked.
Amupitan reported that these enhancements were successfully tested during the recent FCT, Kano, and Rivers polls, with approximately 97 per cent of FCT results already uploaded and verified on IReV.
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