BY FRONTLINE REPORTERS

There is perhaps no greater threat to electoral integrity than an unreliable Voters’ Register. Long before the first ballot is cast or the first election result is announced, the credibility of an election is already being determined by the document that establishes who is eligible to vote.

The Voters’ Register is the foundation of the electoral process. It defines the electorate, determines the numerical strength of constituencies and provides the basis for voter accreditation and voting. Essentially, it is the official record of citizens’ democratic participation.

Yet, in Nigeria, the credibility of this critical electoral document remains a persistent source of public concern.

The Historical Paradox: Have We Really Made Progress?

Nigeria has come a long way from the largely manual voter registration arrangements of the 1950s to biometric registration, electronic databases and the deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).

The 1959 general election, conducted under the Electoral Commission of Nigeria (ECN), had approximately nine million registered voters. Subsequent elections in 1964/65, 1979, 1983 and 1993 presented different administrative and political challenges associated with voter registration.

The advent of the Fourth Republic ushered in more sophisticated electoral technologies, including Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), biometric identification and systems designed to detect multiple registrations.

However, technological advancement has not necessarily translated into greater electoral credibility.

A bigger register is not automatically a better register. A digital database is not necessarily reliable, and biometric technology is not immune to manipulation.

Consider the fluctuations in Nigeria’s voter registration figures: approximately 73.5 million in 2011, 67.4 million in 2015 and 84 million in 2019. Although such changes do not, in themselves, establish manipulation, they underscore the importance of understanding the additions, deletions and corrections made to the register over time.

The real test is the integrity of the data: whether the names represent living, eligible citizens entitled to vote or include fictitious identities and questionable entries.

INEC and the Erosion of Public Confidence

The credibility of an electoral commission rests not only on its constitutional independence but also on demonstrable impartiality, competence and transparency.

Constitutional independence alone cannot guarantee operational independence, particularly where officials entrusted with managing the electoral system compromise its integrity through misconduct.

When public confidence in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declines, virtually every administrative decision becomes susceptible to suspicion, from voter registration and PVC distribution to accreditation and results management.

This highlights the distinction between administrative validity and democratic legitimacy. While the former concerns compliance with established procedures, the latter relates to whether citizens have confidence that those procedures can produce a credible electoral outcome.

The European Union Election Observation Mission’s final report on Nigeria’s 2023 general election identified shortcomings in electoral administration that undermined public confidence. Among its recommendations was an independent external audit of the Voters’ Register, including physical data checks and an assessment of biometric data quality.

This is particularly significant because concerns about the integrity of Nigeria’s electoral database extend beyond allegations by opposition political parties.

The Law Is Clear: Why Must the Register Be Open to the Public?

Section 19 of the Electoral Act provides for the public display and scrutiny of the Voters’ Register.

Under the provision, INEC is required to designate a seven-day period, not later than 90 days before a general election, during which the register must be displayed at Registration Areas and published on its official website or another designated platform.

The law also provides for claims and objections relating to names improperly included in or omitted from the register. Failure by an INEC official to display or publish the register constitutes an offence under Section 19(5).

Public inspection enables citizens to identify omissions, questionable entries and incorrect transfers. It also gives political parties, civil society organisations and election observers the opportunity to scrutinise the database before election day.

This is democratic quality control, not an administrative favour.

A register that is inaccessible, inadequately publicised or concealed behind bureaucratic obstacles defeats the purpose of the law. INEC cannot be the sole custodian, examiner and final judge of its own database.

A source within INEC told Vanguard that the public display of the register at ward level and online had significantly helped the commission identify duplicate registrations and other irregularities.

According to the source, hundreds of thousands of claims and objections had so far been received, with more expected.

The source recalled that when the current leadership assumed office, it considered conducting a voter revalidation exercise to facilitate a more comprehensive cleaning of the register. However, following widespread public opposition to the proposal, the commission was compelled to abandon the plan.

The source also disclosed that INEC had conducted three phases of Continuous Voter Registration (CVR).

Vanguard further learnt that the commission was undertaking a zonal review of the exercise and had committed to presenting a cleaned-up Voters’ Register by December 15, 2026.

The Dangerous Politics of Padding the Register

In a political environment where electoral strength is often measured by voter numbers, the temptation to inflate registration figures cannot be ignored.

Register padding may involve duplicate identities, ineligible persons, deceased registrants, fictitious entries or the manipulation of personal information.

Nigeria’s biometric registration system was designed, in part, to prevent such abuses. Fingerprint and facial recognition technologies can help identify duplicate records, but their effectiveness depends on data quality, institutional oversight and the integrity of officials operating the system.

The register must therefore be protected against both external interference and insider misconduct through stringent access controls, audit trails, independent verification and meaningful sanctions.

INEC maintains that it is taking steps to address these vulnerabilities.

However, the emergence of artificial intelligence has introduced another troubling dimension to the challenge.

In October 2026, concerns emerged over suspected AI-generated photographs, duplicate records and questionable entries in Nigeria’s preliminary Voters’ Register.

INEC acknowledged that it was investigating the irregularities, while its Director of Information and Communication Technology, Lawrence Bayode, reportedly attributed some of the questionable records to alleged misconduct by registration officers with access to the commission’s platform.

However, the commission’s failure to publicly identify the officials allegedly involved has raised further questions about transparency and accountability.

Artificial intelligence can generate convincing synthetic facial images and other identity-related materials. Nevertheless, the presence of a suspicious photograph does not automatically establish that a fictitious individual has been registered.

Every questionable identity must be subjected to independent investigation and verification.

INEC must explain how such records entered its database, how many are affected, whether the questionable entries have been removed and what safeguards have been introduced to prevent a recurrence.

A national electoral database cannot depend on the assumption that everyone with access to it will act honestly. It must be designed to detect and prevent misconduct, regardless of who is responsible.

PVC Distribution: When Registration Does Not Translate into Voting

Registration means little if citizens cannot ultimately exercise the voting rights it confers.

INEC’s figures for the 2023 general election showed that, out of 93,469,008 registered voters, 87,209,007 had collected their PVCs as of February 5, 2023. This meant that more than six million registered voters had yet to collect their cards.

The figures raise questions about administrative efficiency, voter notification, relocation and access to PVC collection centres.

The disconnect between registration and actual participation is equally troubling.

However, the gap between registered voters and those who eventually vote does not, in itself, establish electoral fraud. Voter apathy, insecurity, logistical difficulties and other factors can influence participation.

Nevertheless, it reinforces the need for an accurate register and an efficient system that enables every eligible citizen to exercise the right to vote.

Other Structural Weaknesses

The challenges associated with the Voters’ Register are not merely administrative inconveniences. An unreliable register can create opportunities for electoral disputes and litigation, as candidates, political parties and voters may challenge questionable entries, omissions and accreditation figures.

Although an inaccurate register does not automatically invalidate an election, it introduces uncertainty into virtually every subsequent stage of the electoral process.

The credibility of accreditation figures, voter turnout and even declared results can become subjects of controversy when the underlying database is considered unreliable.

This is why the integrity of the register must be treated as a national electoral priority rather than an internal administrative matter.

What INEC Must Do to Restore Confidence

To restore public confidence, INEC must move beyond assurances and demonstrate measurable progress in cleaning up the national Voters’ Register.

First, the commission should commission an independent audit of the database, examining duplicate identities, biometric inconsistencies, deceased registrants, underage entries and suspicious photographs.

Second, it must fully enforce Section 19 of the Electoral Act by ensuring meaningful public access to the register and providing appropriately protected, searchable information at polling-unit level.

Third, verified records of deceased persons must be removed, voter-transfer procedures strengthened and stricter controls introduced to regulate access to the electoral database.

The commission should also publish periodic reports detailing additions, deletions, corrections and other changes made to the register.

PVC collection must become more accessible, while officials found culpable of deliberately manipulating registration data should face appropriate disciplinary and legal consequences.

Above all, transparency must become an operational principle, not merely a public relations strategy.

Democracy Begins Before the Ballot Is Cast

Nigeria has travelled from the manual registration systems of the 1950s to sophisticated biometric technologies and electronic electoral databases. These advancements should have produced an electoral environment in which the identity and eligibility of voters are beyond reasonable suspicion.

That the integrity of the Voters’ Register remains a subject of national controversy is a sobering indictment of successive electoral administrations.

In a democracy, the Voters’ Register belongs, in the fullest sense, to the Nigerian people whose voting rights it records. INEC is merely its custodian and has a responsibility to protect its integrity.

Nigeria does not necessarily need a bigger Voters’ Register. It needs a more accurate, transparent, credible and independently verifiable one.

Ultimately, a free, fair and credible election does not begin on election morning. It begins much earlier, with the painstaking process of establishing who is eligible to vote and ensuring that every eligible citizen is properly captured.

The integrity of the ballot is inseparable from the integrity of the register. Where the foundation is uncertain, the legitimacy of the electoral outcome will remain vulnerable.

For INEC, therefore, the task is not simply to clean up the Voters’ Register. It is to restore public confidence in the institution responsible for safeguarding Nigeria’s democracy.