The Independent National Electoral Commission has approved a real-time election readiness tracker to monitor preparations for the 2027 general elections across all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, INEC Chairman Prof. Joash Amupitan confirmed Monday in Lagos.
The tracker will give the commission’s leadership instant updates on logistics, ad hoc staff recruitment and training, technology deployment, and general election readiness at the state level, according to a statement signed by INEC‘s Director of Voter Education and Publicity, Mrs. Victoria Eta-Messi.
Amupitan, who disclosed the plan at a two-day strategic operational workshop for administrative secretaries, said the commission had historically lacked a uniform mechanism for tracking operational responsibilities across the country.
“This will change that,” Amupitan said, describing the system’s goal as replacing what he called “reactive panic with proactive management.”
The system is built on a standardized Excel-based Administrative Secretary Master Operational Tracker Template linked to INEC’s Election Monitoring and Support Centre dashboard and Election Project Plan, the statement said.
Resident Electoral Commissioners, supervising national commissioners, the Secretary to the Commission, and headquarters staff will all have what Amupitan called “instant visibility” into state-level preparations, from materials distribution to training of temporary personnel.
Ten million, seven hundred and seventy-two thousand, four hundred and twenty-one Nigerians registered as new voters during three phases of the Continuous Voter Registration exercise conducted between August 2025 and July 2026, Amupitan disclosed. That figure remains subject to Automated Biometric Identification System verification.
The CVR total, combined with the existing register, has pushed the National Register of Voters close to 100 million, the chairman told the workshop, adding that the commission remained committed to ensuring no eligible Nigerian loses their vote because of delays in Permanent Voter Card distribution or administrative bottlenecks at the state level.
Amupitan said the tracker was not a temporary fix for 2027 but a permanent blueprint that future administrative secretaries would inherit. The commission, he said, was drawing direct lessons from the Osun State governorship election, where disciplined logistics and functioning technology produced what INEC considered a clean process.
“We are now working to replicate that standard nationally,” Amupitan said, according to the statement. The presidential and National Assembly elections are scheduled for January 16, 2027. Governorship and state assembly polls follow on February 6.
Lagos State Resident Electoral Commissioner Prof. Ayobami Salami called the workshop timely and thanked the European Union, through its Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria program, for backing the exercise, Salami told reporters at the event.
Commission Secretary Mrs. Rose Oriaran-Anthony said every state delegation would leave the workshop with a logistics risk register, an ad hoc recruitment and deployment plan, and a stakeholder engagement plan covering the next three months, she confirmed.
At a separate South-West zonal interactive meeting held Monday at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Ikeja, Amupitan warned INEC staff that the pressure ahead of 2027 would be severe. “The eyes of 200 million Nigerians, and the world, are fixed on us,” he said.
The Ikeja meeting opened a six-zone tour the commission will use to assess its 2027 readiness. Amupitan said real preparedness would not show up in Abuja conference rooms but at local government offices, registration area centers, and individual polling units nationwide, where election outcomes are ultimately determined.
Voter apathy, public distrust, and the spread of misinformation were identified by Amupitan as the principal threats to the 2027 polls. The commission, the chairman noted at the briefing, was also refining its eEC8A result management system to strengthen verification of results from polling units through to the national collation center.
INEC’s real-time tracker, Amupitan said, represents one of five operational areas under review, alongside logistics, electoral technology, ad hoc staff optimization, and financial compliance, as the commission enters what the chairman described as its final six months of preparation.
