Sam Amadi, former chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, has told Nigerians not to trust the Independent National Electoral Commission's voter registration system. He made the claim on Friday during an interview on News Central Television, arguing that INEC had failed to prove basic competence in managing elections.
Amadi was responding to INEC's failure to electronically transmit results during the last election. The commission had tested its systems beforehand and told the public it was ready to send results electronically on election day. When the time came, INEC blamed a glitch but offered no evidence or proof that any technical failure had actually occurred.
"With all the issues around BVAS malfunctioning, which many people think was internal sabotage by INEC itself not to transmit the election result, do you expect the first item on the agenda of any opposition political party would be to subject INEC to an independent forensic audit," Amadi said. He was referring to the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, the card reader machines INEC uses at polling stations.
Amadi framed the problem as a choice between two bad options. A voter register that nobody trusts is less dangerous than a system that people think is being deliberately breached by those in charge of it. His argument suggests that public confidence in INEC's systems has collapsed, and that the commission's credibility is the real issue at stake for the 2027 election.
The former regulator did not specify what steps opposition parties or civil society should take to verify INEC's systems before 2027. However, his call for an independent forensic audit suggests that external validation of INEC's technology and processes would be necessary for voters to believe in the integrity of the next election.
