(A NewsLeader Newspaper Editorial)
For Nigeria, the reality of the 2027 general election is here. But it must not become another cycle of promises, disputes and post-election recriminations. The time to protect the vote is now!
Nigeria is once again approaching that familiar but consequential season when politicians criss-cross the country in search of votes, parties unveil manifestoes, campaign platforms come alive and citizens are asked to choose who will govern them.
But this time, Nigerians must demand something more fundamental than campaign promises. The country must get the electoral process right.
This is not merely a demand for a peaceful Election Day. It is a demand for an electoral system in which citizens can register freely, candidates can compete fairly, voters can cast their ballots without intimidation, results can be independently verified, electoral officials can perform their duties without interference, security agencies can remain neutral, and disputes can be resolved according to law.
The coming general elections provide Nigeria with another opportunity to strengthen the democratic gains of the Fourth Republic. They also present another test of whether the country has genuinely learnt from the weaknesses exposed by previous elections. The lessons of 2023 remain particularly important!
The European Union Election Observation Mission, in its assessment of the 2023 elections, identified persistent systemic weaknesses and called for reforms covering electoral law, the independence of election administration, results management, media freedom, inclusion and the prosecution of electoral offences. It specifically stressed the need for a transparent and verifiable results-management system.
These recommendations should not be treated as another report to be shelved until the next election. They should form part of the national checklist for 2027. The election begins long before Election Day. One of Nigeria's recurring mistakes has been to regard the election as a single day. It is not.
An election begins with the voters' register. It continues through party membership, primaries, candidate nomination, campaign finance, campaign conduct, media access, voter education, security preparations, polling, counting, collation, transmission and declaration of results. It continues further through the courts when disputes arise.
Failure at any one of these stages can damage confidence in the entire process.
This is why the beginning of campaigns should also mark the beginning of an even more serious national conversation about electoral responsibility.
The political parties must understand that a campaign is not a declaration of war.
Candidates may disagree passionately. They may attack one another's policies and records. They may expose contradictions in their opponents' manifestoes. They may ask Nigerians to reject the programmes of rival parties. But disagreement must not become incitement. The National Peace Accord signed by several political actors in August 2026, ahead of the commencement of public campaigns, is therefore a useful starting point. The accord commits participants to issue-based campaigns and opposition to violence, hate speech, misinformation and personal attacks. But Nigerians have seen peace accords before. The real test is not the signing ceremony. The real test is what politicians do after the cameras disappear.
A candidate who signs a peace agreement in Abuja and permits supporters to threaten opponents in a village square has defeated the purpose of the agreement. A party that preaches tolerance publicly but deploys inflammatory ethnic or religious rhetoric privately is undermining the republic.
Nigeria therefore needs enforceable consequences for electoral misconduct, not merely ceremonial commitments. INEC must earn public confidence. No institution carries a greater operational responsibility for the credibility of the elections than the Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission.
INEC has made some encouraging preparations.
It has released the electoral timetable, begun preparations for the voters' register and indicated plans to revalidate and clean up the register. The Commission has also emphasised the importance of mock exercises, staff training, logistics and post-election reviews. The 2026 Electoral Act also provides a new legal framework for the 2027 elections. These are positive signs.
But preparation is not the same thing as credibility. The electoral commission must understand that Nigerians will judge it not by the elegance of its press statements but by what happens at polling units and collation centres. INEC must therefore be obsessively transparent. Where technology works, the public should know how it works. Where it fails, the public should know why it failed and what procedure applies. Where results are transmitted electronically, the process must be auditable. Where manual procedures become necessary, the rules must be clear before Election Day. The uncertainty that surrounded results management after the 2023 elections must not be repeated.
INEC itself acknowledges that collation and declaration are critical stages because failures in transparent and accurate results processing can jeopardise public confidence and affect whether candidates and parties accept results. That warning should be taken seriously. Technology must serve transparency, not replace it. Nigeria has invested heavily in electoral technology, particularly the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BIVAS) and the INEC Result Viewing portal. But technology is not a magic wand.
A machine can authenticate a voter; it cannot by itself prevent a politician from buying votes. A results portal can display documents; it cannot by itself prevent intimidation at a collation centre. Artificial intelligence can improve information systems; it can also be exploited to manufacture convincing falsehoods.
The International Republican Institute's recent assessment of Nigeria's 2027 preparations has identified precisely these challenges, including concerns about results transmission, the testing of BVAS and IReV, ballot secrecy, political violence and misinformation. INEC should therefore conduct serious stress tests of its technological systems before the election.
Mock elections must not be treated as public-relations exercises. They should deliberately simulate difficult circumstances: poor network connectivity, equipment failure, overcrowded polling units, security disruptions, extreme weather and disputes over results. The country must discover the weaknesses of the system before millions of Nigerians depend on it. The Federal Government has a special responsibility
Although INEC is the electoral management body, the Federal Government cannot wash its hands of the broader electoral environment. Its first responsibility is security. The Nigerian Police Force, the armed forces and other security agencies must operate as protectors of the electoral process, not instruments of political advantage.
Every voter must have the same protection regardless of political affiliation. Security personnel must protect polling units, election officials, voters, party agents and electoral materials. They must prevent violence without becoming participants in political contests. The temptation to use state power against political opponents must be resisted.
The government of the day has an additional obligation because the conduct of the incumbent administration will inevitably influence public perceptions of the entire process. The Federal Government should therefore deliberately demonstrate restraint.
It should allow opposition parties to campaign freely. It should protect peaceful protests and lawful political gatherings. It should discourage the use of government institutions for partisan intimidation. And where members of the governing party violate electoral laws, the appropriate institutions should be allowed to act.
Nothing would strengthen public confidence more than evidence that the government is prepared to obey the same rules it expects its opponents to obey. State governments must also play by the rules. Electoral integrity cannot be secured in Abuja alone.
Governors, state political leaders and local government structures have enormous influence over the electoral environment.
State governments must provide a safe environment for all political parties, regardless of whether those parties support the incumbent governor. State-owned media must not become propaganda outlets. Public resources must not be converted into campaign machinery. Local officials must not be used to intimidate opposition supporters.
The democratic principle is simple:
Government belongs to the people, not to the party temporarily occupying the government house. Governors and other political office holders should therefore publicly commit themselves to peaceful competition and accept legitimate electoral outcomes.
Where they believe an election has been compromised, the courts provide a constitutional avenue for redress. Violence, intimidation and extra-legal retaliation cannot be substitutes for litigation.
Political parties must clean their own houses
It is convenient to blame INEC for every electoral problem. That is insufficient!
Political parties themselves remain central to the crisis. Parties must conduct transparent primaries. They must publish credible membership registers. They must discourage the buying of delegates and voters. They must submit accurate information to INEC. They must train their agents properly and ensure that their campaign teams understand electoral law.
More importantly, party leaders must take responsibility for their supporters.
It is no longer acceptable for a party to distance itself from violence after its supporters have committed it. Political parties should establish internal mechanisms for identifying and disciplining members who incite violence, spread dangerous misinformation or interfere with voting.
The Electoral Act 2026 has introduced important changes touching areas including campaign finance, party membership, internal party democracy and candidate nomination. These provisions should be understood and implemented rather than left to lawyers to interpret after the damage has been done.
Money remains one of the biggest threats
Nigeria cannot pretend that money has no influence on elections. Vote buying, campaign spending and the monetisation of political competition have repeatedly undermined democratic participation. The poor voter who is offered money for his ballot is not necessarily corrupt. In many cases, such behaviour reflects economic desperation. But a political system that turns citizens' hardship into an electoral commodity ultimately damages democracy.
The 2027 elections must therefore bring much greater scrutiny to campaign finance.
Political parties should disclose their sources of campaign funding as required by law. INEC should strengthen monitoring. Financial institutions and relevant law-enforcement agencies should cooperate within the law to detect suspicious electoral financing. The objective should not be to cripple legitimate political fundraising.
It should be to prevent elections from becoming auctions in which the candidate with the deepest pockets has an unfair advantage.
WHAT THE MEDIA MUST DO
The media must do better. The Nigerian media also has a historic responsibility.
Election journalism should not become a competition for sensational headlines.
Newsrooms must distinguish between allegation and fact, campaign rhetoric and evidence, opinion and verified information.
Candidates should be challenged about their programmes, financing, records and claims.
The media should also resist becoming an amplifier for ethnic and religious provocation. Equally important, broadcasters must provide fair access to competing political viewpoints in accordance with applicable rules. The public needs journalism that helps citizens understand the choices before them, not journalism that tells citizens what to think.Social media could make or break the election.
The 2027 election will be fought not only in town halls and stadiums but on phones.
Artificial intelligence has changed the information environment. Fake videos, manipulated audio, fabricated quotations and impersonation can circulate faster than corrections. The danger is particularly serious during elections because false information released hours before voting or while results are being collated can trigger panic and violence. Candidates and parties must therefore accept responsibility for their digital operations. They should identify official campaign accounts, promptly correct false information, prohibit deceptive AI-generated impersonations and instruct supporters not to circulate unverified claims.
The International Republican Institute has specifically urged Nigerian political actors to avoid producing or amplifying false information and AI-generated impersonations capable of undermining confidence in the electoral process. The government, however, must be careful that the fight against disinformation does not become a pretext for suppressing legitimate criticism. Free speech remains indispensable to democracy.
WHAT SIGNS THAT NIGERIA CAN GET IT RIGHT?
There are reasons for cautious optimism.
First, Nigeria has an established electoral institution and an increasingly sophisticated electoral framework. Second, the country has learnt painful lessons from successive elections. Third, the Electoral Act 2026 represents another attempt to improve the legal framework governing elections. Fourth, INEC has demonstrated a willingness to examine its own weaknesses. Its chairman has called for internal audits, stronger supervision and institutionalized post-election reviews. Fifth, recent off-cycle elections have provided opportunities to test systems and procedures before the much larger 2027 contest. INEC has said it intends to draw lessons from these exercises. Sixth, civil society organisations, domestic observers, international partners and the Nigerian media remain deeply engaged.
These are important foundations.
THE SERIOUS WARNING SIGNS
But there are also serious warning signs.
Recent assessments continue to identify political violence, vote buying, insecurity, declining trust, misinformation and disputes over results management as threats to the electoral process. The existence of reforms therefore does not guarantee electoral credibility. Implementation will determine everything.
THE COURTS MUST BE READY
The judiciary also has a crucial role.
Electoral disputes should be determined promptly and according to clearly established law. Judicial decisions must be respected by political actors, whether those decisions favour or disappoint them. At the same time, the legal framework must be sufficiently clear to prevent avoidable disputes. Nigeria has paid an enormous price for elections that become prolonged legal battles. The best electoral dispute is the one prevented by a transparent process.
The second-best is one resolved quickly, fairly and transparently by an independent judiciary.
CITIZENS ARE NOT SPECTATORS
Perhaps the most important message is to Nigerian voters themselves. Citizens must refuse to surrender their democratic power.
They should verify information before sharing it. They should reject appeals to violence. They should scrutinise candidates and manifestoes. They should report electoral offences through appropriate channels. They should protect their voter information and insist that their ballots remain secret. Most importantly, voters should understand that elections are not merely about choosing a president or governor. They are about determining who receives the authority to control public resources for years. That responsibility cannot be delegated entirely to politicians.
THE OPPORTUNITY BEFORE NIGERIA NOW
Nigeria has held elections for decades, but the country is still trying to establish a system in which losing an election does not necessarily mean losing everything and winning an election does not mean controlling everything. That is the deeper democratic challenge. The 2027 elections should therefore be treated as a national project not as the private property of political parties. The Federal Government must provide security and restraint. INEC must provide competence, transparency and impartial administration. The National Assembly must provide clear and workable electoral laws. The judiciary must provide timely and independent justice. Security agencies must remain professional and non-partisan. Political parties must conduct themselves responsibly. Candidates must campaign on issues rather than ethnic and religious divisions. The media must inform rather than inflame. Civil society must remain vigilant. And voters must participate intelligently and peacefully. Nigeria does not need a perfect election. No democracy has one.
What Nigeria needs is an election whose imperfections are addressed openly and whose outcome can withstand reasonable scrutiny because citizens believe that their votes were counted according to established rules. The country has reached the point where another cycle of elections followed by allegations of manipulation, disputed results, violence and years of litigation would be an unacceptable waste of democratic opportunity. The warning signs are already visible. So are the opportunities for improvement. The task now is to ensure that the reforms on paper become reality at the polling unit. The politicians must remember that they are contestants, not owners of Nigeria. INEC must remember that it is a referee, not a participant. Security agencies must remember that their loyalty is to the Constitution, not to political parties. And Nigerians must remember that democracy ultimately belongs to them.
The 2027 election must therefore be more than another election. It must be a demonstration that Nigeria has learnt from its past. The time to get it right is not after the votes have been counted. The time is now. NNL.
