“You don’t rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your preparation.” -Anonymous
Nigeria is heading into another general election with a familiar ghost haunting it — the voters’ register.
Every election cycle, INEC tells us the register has been cleaned. Every election cycle, Nigerians discover on election day that the register was not clean at all. Names missing. Dead people voting. Underage voters. Double registration. Ghost polling units with 2,000 registered voters but 50 actual residents.
So the question must be asked plainly: With a faulty register, is there any need for an independent audit before the general election? The answer is YES — and it is urgent.
The Register Is The Foundation. An election is only as credible as its register. If the register is faulty, everything built on it — accreditation, voting, collation, results — is faulty.
On Wednesday, I listened to former Minister of Education, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili talk about this issue and advocated for an independent audit, so I also felt the need to add my voice.
In 2023, INEC itself admitted to removing over 2.7 million double registrations. Civil society groups found children, foreigners, and deceased persons still on the list in Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Lagos, and Oyo. In some polling units in Oke-Ogun and Ogbomoso, voters complained their names had vanished after they had voted in 2019. A friend actually came home to Iseyin to vote, but unfortunately, could not find his name on the register.
If we go into 2027 with the same register, we are not preparing for an election. We are preparing for a dispute.
It is important to state now that INEC Cannot Audit Itself.
This is not an attack on INEC. It is a principle of accountability. No institution can be the player and the referee in its own matter.
INEC compiles the register, INEC cleans the register, INEC announces the register is clean. That is like asking a student to mark his own exam script.
What Nigeria needs is an independent audit— not by INEC staff, not by politicians, but by a joint panel of: Civil society and election observers, NIMC (to cross-check NIN, age, death records), National Population Commission, Nigerian Bar Association and academia (statisticians, data analysts) and International observers with technical capacity, are all necessary.
Their job would be simple: sample the register polling-unit by polling-unit, LGA-by-LGA, state-by-state, and answer: How many are dead? How many are duplicated? How many are underage? How many have no verifiable identity?
Politicians that likes the status quo may ask you, what An Audit Will Expose — And Fix? An independent audit will do three things: Restore confidence: When voters see their names are intact, they will turn out. Low turnout in Nigeria is partly because people have lost faith that their votes will count, prevent rigging: a bloated register is the raw material for rigging. Ghost voters become ballot stuffing. Clean register = fewer loopholes for politicians to exploit, as well as save money and time: It is cheaper to audit now than to run to the Tribunal for 6 months after election to prove over-voting.
Like I said above, INEC and some politicians will say: “We have no time, election is near.”
But that is exactly why we must audit now. A faulty register guarantees post-election litigation, violence, and loss of legitimacy. A 60-90 day independent audit before final publication of the register is far better than 180 days of tribunal chaos after.
South Africa, Ghana, and Kenya have all allowed independent verification of their registers before elections. Nigeria should not be an exception.
Nigerians must not wait until after the election to cry “rigging” when the rigging started with a faulty register.
Political parties, especially opposition parties in Oyo, APC, PDP, APM, ADC, and others, civil society, traditional rulers, religious leaders and the National Assembly must demand one thing:
No credible register, no credible election. Audit the register NOW.
Let INEC publish the register polling-unit by polling-unit online, open it to public scrutiny, and allow an independent audit before it is locked for the general election.
If we get the register right, we get the election half-right. If we get it wrong, no amount of BVAS, IReV or security will save us.
Alhazan Abiodun Rilwan is a journalist and community development agent. Email: khalizan01@gmail.com. Phone Number: +2348034162663
