Kaduna
The Independent National Electoral Commission will begin collection of permanent voter cards on 9 October, the commission chairman Professor Joash O. Amupitan, SAN, announced on Monday while directing staff across the North West to close operational gaps, stay neutral and leave no avoidable weakness that could damage the credibility of the 2027 general election.
Amupitan gave the charge in Kaduna at the North West zonal interactive meeting with staff and readiness assessment for the 2027 general election. The session forms part of INEC’s six zone national tour to measure preparedness, surface problems facing field operations and produce practical fixes before the polls.
Opening the meeting, the chairman said the commission’s presence in Kaduna was not a routine administrative visit. It was, he said, an effort to strengthen the foundations of Nigeria’s electoral process. Success, he added, is decided at the grass roots: in local government areas, registration area centres and polling units where officials meet voters face to face.
“The true success of any election is not decided solely in the meeting rooms of our headquarters in Abuja. It is decided in the field,” he said.
He asked staff to lay out the real difficulties they face in election administration and to work with headquarters on solutions well before election day. The commission, he said, is applying lessons from recent polls as it prepares for the much larger national contest in 2027.
Amupitan warned officials against partisan behaviour and administrative negligence. Public confidence, he stressed, will rest on the neutrality and professionalism of personnel in the field.
Three phases of continuous voter registration have produced 10,772,421 new registrations, subject to verification through the automated biometric identification system. The chairman called for an end to bottlenecks in the distribution of permanent voter cards at local government area offices so that eligible citizens are not shut out of the ballot by logistics failures.
INEC is also refining its technology for voter verification and result transmission, together with its result management systems, including the recently introduced eEC8A. The commission is applying a Zero Failure approach to logistics that covers early movement of materials, transport, security coordination and the training of ad hoc staff.
In welcome remarks the supervising national commissioner for Kaduna, Mallam Kudu Haruna, said the zonal meetings were designed so that the chairman and other members of the leadership could meet staff directly despite a crowded diary and the short time left before 2027.
Haruna said the Kaduna visit began with a courtesy call on the Emir of Zazzau, who also chairs the Kaduna State Council of Traditional Rulers. The meeting allowed INEC to brief the traditional ruler on preparations and to seek the help of traditional institutions in turning out eligible voters.
The chairman told the Emir that collection of the new permanent voter cards would start as planned and asked traditional rulers to urge citizens to collect their cards and use their constitutional right to vote.
Haruna said he was confident the Kaduna session would help the commission tighten election administration before the national polls.
Helen Ajayi, director of planning and monitoring, said the zonal exercise exists to measure how ready each state is and to identify operational problems in good time. The sessions, she added, also keep staff aligned with the commission’s code of conduct.
The North West engagement continues INEC’s nationwide readiness drive as the commission works to put people, technology and materials in place for the 2027 elections.
By A.Ikechukwu
