2027: INEC Rejects Obi’s Parallel Results Collation Plan As ADC Endorses It

By Ademu Idakwo, Olakunle Olasanmi, Abuja, Olamide Ojuokaiye, Abiodun Sivowaku, Lagos

Expectedly, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has reaffirmed its exclusive statutory authority to collate and announce election results in Nigeria, amid fresh moves by opposition political forces to independently track, transmit and collate results from polling units during the 2027 general elections.

Obi Proposes Dual Results Transmission

INEC’s position came against the backdrop of a proposal by the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, to establish an independent system through which his campaign organisation would transmit election results from polling units to its own situation room alongside the official transmission to the commission.

Obi’s plan has also drawn the support of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), which said it was equally building its own capacity to collate results rather than relying solely on the commission for the collation of figures generated at polling units.

Obi, in an interview with Arise TV on Thursday, said his team would deploy a system capable of receiving and monitoring results from polling units as they are recorded during the 2027 election.

He said the system would operate alongside INEC’s official transmission platform, explaining that the objective was to ensure that results declared at the end of the process could be traced to what was recorded at the polling units.

“We must make sure that at every polling unit, the votes are counted, the votes are recorded properly, the votes are transmitted properly,” Obi said.

He explained that his team would have what he described as a “dual transmission” system, with results transmitted to the designated INEC portal as well as to its own situation room.

The former Anambra State governor said the arrangement should not be regarded as the establishment of a parallel result-transmission system, arguing that it was intended to provide an additional means of monitoring the integrity of results from polling units.

Obi’s move reflects a longstanding mistrust of INEC’s processes following the hotly disputed 2023 presidential election during which INEC reported that  its results viewing portal, IReV, suffered a glitch that affected only presidential election results, leaving the three main candidates, Obi, Atiku Abubakar and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu claiming victory.

INEC declared Tinubu winner and the courts affirmed his victory, but Obi and his supporters have continued to claim he won at the polls but was denied victory.

ADC Backs Independent Monitoring

Meanwhile, the ADC similarly said it would not depend entirely on INEC for the collation of its own results during the 2027 elections.

The national publicity secretary of the party, Bolaji Abdullahi, said the party was developing its own capacity to collate results as part of efforts to independently monitor the electoral process.

When the question was posed to him, Abdullahi said, “Absolutely. We are also saying that we will not trust the collation of results to INEC. We are also building the capacity to collate our results.”

The development signals a growing emphasis among opposition parties on independent monitoring of election results ahead of the 2027 presidential election, particularly following continuing concerns over the transparency and credibility of the electoral process.

Tech Experts Say System Is Feasible

Technology and electoral experts who spoke on the proposal said a political party could technically establish an independent results-tracking platform capable of collecting, transmitting, aggregating and analysing polling-unit results in near real time.

They, however, cautioned that the major challenge would not be developing the software, but deploying a secure and credible system across Nigeria’s vast electoral landscape, where connectivity gaps, human error, physical security risks, cybersecurity threats and misinformation could undermine the integrity of the data.

Senior systems analyst, Esther Folorunso, said it was technically possible for a political party to build a system through which its accredited agents could capture and electronically transmit copies of polling-unit results to a central situation room.

According to her, the platform could use a secure mobile application through which agents upload photographs of polling-unit result sheets alongside information such as the polling-unit code, location and time of submission.

She explained that the information could subsequently be transmitted to a central database, where the results would be aggregated and monitored as they came in.

Connectivity, Security Pose Challenges

Folorunso, however, stressed that such a platform would not replace INEC’s official result-management and collation process, but could serve as an independent verification and audit mechanism.

She said, “If properly designed and implemented, an independent result-tracking system could provide an additional layer of transparency and accountability. But its credibility would depend heavily on the integrity of the data collected at the polling-unit level.”

She identified nationwide execution as the major challenge, noting that the system would require trained and accredited agents, strong cybersecurity, reliable authentication, protection against duplicate or manipulated submissions, and offline capabilities in locations with poor internet connectivity.

Similarly, data scientist and visualisation expert, Engr. Aniekpong D. Effiong, said Obi’s proposal was feasible, but argued that the concept was not entirely new to Nigeria’s electoral process.

He noted that polling agents are entitled to receive signed copies of polling-unit results, including Form EC8A, and witness the display of results at polling units.

According to him, political parties can photograph these documents and transmit them to their situation rooms, while civil society organisations such as Yiaga Africa have also conducted parallel vote tabulation exercises using samples of polling units.

Risk of Competing Election Figures

He said what would distinguish Obi’s proposal was the attempt to take the existing practice to a much larger scale.

“However, that scale is the real challenge as Nigeria has 176,846 polling units, making nationwide coverage a major logistical and technological undertaking,” Effiong averred.

He warned that the proposed system could encounter many of the same connectivity problems faced by INEC, particularly in areas where telecommunications infrastructure remains unreliable.

Effiong also raised concerns over the potential for a parallel tally to become a competing source of election figures during the sensitive period between the close of polling and INEC’s final declaration.

According to him, fake screenshots, fabricated figures and unverified claims could spread rapidly on social media, while rival political interests could question figures generated by a system controlled by a campaign organisation.

Audit Trail Critical, Says Analyst

In his own submission, information systems and risk analyst, Olufemi Esan, also described the proposal as technically achievable, but said its real value would depend on whether it could establish a credible chain of evidence from the polling unit to the central database.

Esan said a serious system would require thousands of trained field agents equipped with authenticated mobile applications to capture polling-unit result sheets after votes have been counted.

Rather than merely entering figures into an application, he said agents should capture the completed result sheet, verify the figures, confirm the polling-unit identity and transmit the evidence through an authenticated channel.

He further argued that the system should separately preserve the original image of the result sheet, the numerical data extracted from it, and the identity and circumstances of the person who submitted it.

“This creates something much more useful than a spreadsheet. It creates an audit trail,” Esan said.

According to him, such an audit trail could enable a political party to compare the result recorded at a polling unit with figures that subsequently emerge during the collation process and identify precisely where discrepancies occurred.

Offline Capacity, Data Analytics Needed

Esan, while speaking on connectivity, said Nigeria’s telecommunications landscape made it necessary for any national results-tracking platform to be designed to function even when internet access was unavailable.

He said the application should be capable of securely storing evidence offline and transmitting it once connectivity is restored, while alternative communication channels and recovery procedures should also be incorporated.

He further pointed to the potential use of data analytics and anomaly detection to identify unusual patterns, including duplicate submissions, missing polling units, unexplained gaps, results exceeding accredited voters and inconsistencies within datasets.

He noted that such systems would not independently establish electoral fraud, but could identify areas requiring further investigation.

Utomi Advocates Multiple Verification Channels

The experts’ concerns come against the backdrop of earlier calls for multiple and independent channels of election-result verification.

Convener of the Big Tent Coalition, Prof. Pat Utomi, had previously spoken about the need for results from polling units to be transmitted and monitored through multiple channels.

Clarifying an earlier widely publicised statement that NDC polling-unit results would be transmitted live and monitored globally by international media organisations, Utomi said the proposal originated from the Big Tent about two months earlier and formed part of a broader operational plan.

“The idea is not for just that body that I was speaking for to do it, but to encourage complex redundancy of the process,” Utomi explained.

He said church groups, diaspora networks and civil society organisations were also being mobilised to photograph and simultaneously upload result sheets immediately after they were signed at polling units.

Independent Tracking Not a Substitute for INEC

The emphasis on complex redundancy highlights the emerging argument that election-result transparency may be strengthened when independent actors maintain separate records of what occurred at polling units.

For analysts, however, the success of any such initiative will ultimately depend on whether it is treated as a verification mechanism rather than an alternative electoral authority.

While INEC remains responsible for conducting the election, managing the official results process and declaring the outcome, a political party cannot assume those statutory functions by deploying its own technology.

What a party can do is maintain an independently collected record of what its agents witnessed and documented at polling units.

Lawyers Question Legal Basis

Some legal practitioners in the country have said that plans to establish an independent collation of election results during the 2027 general elections are not backed by law.

According to the lawyers, such an arrangement is unknown to law.

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Abdul Balogun, said if the NDC candidate wanted to establish such an independent collation arrangement, it would be for the purpose of enabling his party to monitor results.

According to him, it is unknown to the law and, if allowed at this stage of the electoral process, it could be abused during the election.

He said, “Each party or candidate is free to have the results of the elections monitored the way it feels, but such collation cannot be binding on INEC.”

Lawyers Say It Could Be Abused

For his part, a professor of law, Ajida S. Bello, described it as a good plan if it is allowed because it will curb rigging and put INEC on its toes.

He, however, expressed concern that it could be open to abuse by politicians, even as he called on politicians to play by the rules.

“It is a good proposition, at least, each candidate will know how he is performing in the election, but at the same time, we have to be careful because politicians will subvert the process.

“If it is allowed to run smoothly and if politicians will be sincere with themselves, it can fast-track collation of results. Also, it will give credibility to the process. But unfortunately, politicians will always find a way to subvert the process,” he said.

For Barrister Imeh Ukpong, allowing such plans at this stage would disrupt the electoral process.