The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced plans to release a revised timetable for the 2027 general elections following the enactment of the new Electoral Act 2026.
INEC Chairman, Joash O. Amupitan, disclosed this during a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) and the swearing-in of a new REC for Abia State. According to him, the commission must align its election schedule with the provisions of the newly amended electoral law signed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Before the amendment, INEC had already scheduled the presidential and National Assembly elections for February 20, 2027, and governorship and state assembly elections for March 6, 2027. However, those dates were fixed under the previous legal framework. Amupitan explained that the new Electoral Act now mandates that INEC must publish a notice of election not later than 300 days before any election date. Because the earlier notice issued on February 13, 2026 was based on the old law, a fresh timetable is now required. The original election dates had also drawn criticism from some Muslim groups who argued that they overlapped with the Ramadan fasting period.
The INEC chairman also announced that the commission will soon begin a nationwide voter revalidation exercise aimed at cleaning up the voter register ahead of the 2027 polls. The initiative, he said, was part of decisions reached during the commission’s retreat in Lagos earlier in January. He further confirmed that the second phase of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise, which began on January 5, 2026, will continue until April 17, while the full CVR cycle is expected to end by August 30, 2026.
INEC also outlined improvements to its election technology, particularly the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV). Amupitan said the upgraded system now requires presiding officers to upload images of result sheets (Form EC8A) directly to IReV while simultaneously entering party scores into the BVAS device, with internal validation checks to ensure that total votes do not exceed accredited voters, figures remain mathematically consistent, and any instance of over-voting is automatically flagged and blocked.
These upgrades were tested during recent Area Council elections in the Federal Capital Territory and bye-elections in Kano and Rivers States, where INEC reported that about 97 percent of results were uploaded successfully.
