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A former National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Festus Okoye, has said the commission will have to conduct the 2027 general elections using the existing voters’ register, despite widespread concerns about its credibility.
Okoye, however, argued that Nigeria should begin compiling a completely new biometric voters’ register immediately after the elections. He described the current database as opaque, inaccurate and unreliable, warning that it does not adequately reflect the country’s true voting population.
He made the remarks during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, while responding to questions about how Nigerians can trust the register that will be used for the 2027 polls.
According to Okoye, there is now little time or practical room to comprehensively correct the flaws in the existing register before the election. He said the country would therefore have to proceed with the current database, even though it remains tainted by concerns over duplicate, fictitious and questionable registrations.
“The truth of the matter is that there is nothing we can do now. We have to go into the election with this current voters’ register,” he said.
He maintained that the solution was to undertake a fresh biometric registration exercise immediately after the elections.
“My position is that immediately after the conduct of the 2027 general election, Nigeria must have a new biometric voters’ register.
“I think that our voters’ register as presently constituted is opaque and cannot be said to be a clean voters’ register. It cannot be said to be a genuine voters’ register that we can go into an election with.
“But the truth of the matter is that there is nothing we can do now. We have to go into the election with this current voters’ register. And immediately after the election, we should have a new biometric voters’ register,” he added.
His comments come amid concerns over the integrity of the national voters’ register following irregularities reported during INEC’s 2025/2026 Continuous Voter Registration exercise.
The commission, according to Punch report, displayed its preliminary voters’ register between October 9 and 15, 2026, allowing registered voters to inspect their details and submit claims and objections.
It also published the preliminary register online to enable more Nigerians to scrutinise the records and report suspected irregularities.
On November 9, INEC Chairman, Prof Joash Amupitan, announced that the commission had removed 1,608,660 invalid registrations from the 2025/2026 exercise, alongside 873 records belonging to verified deceased persons.
He also disclosed that 54 officials across 10 states had been identified for administrative investigation and possible prosecution over their involvement in registration irregularities.
The irregularities included multiple registrations, manipulated photographs and deliberate circumvention of registration procedures by some registration officials.
Amupitan said the clean-up of the latest registration exercise would not resolve all the problems associated with the national voters’ register, as some irregularities dated back to previous registration exercises.
INEC is expected to publish the final voters’ register on December 15, 2026, ahead of the 2027 general elections.
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