Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has proposed a staggering ₦873.78 billion budget to conduct the 2027 general elections, a sharp increase from the ₦313.4 billion released for the 2023 polls.
The commission also requested ₦171 billion to cover its 2026 operations, including bye-elections and off-season polls, warning that the ₦140 billion provided by the Ministry of Finance is insufficient to meet urgent and flexible funding needs.
INEC Chairman Prof. Joash Amupitan presented the figures to the National Assembly Joint Committee on Electoral Matters in Abuja, saying the proposals comply with the Electoral Act 2022, which requires election budgets to be prepared at least a year in advance.
The 2027 budget covers operational, administrative, technological, election capital, and miscellaneous expenses, while the 2026 operations proposal includes personnel costs, overheads, election-related activities, and capital expenditure.
The massive scale of the budget has raised concerns about funding efficiency and transparency, with questions emerging over whether INEC can deliver credible elections while managing such huge sums.
Meanwhile, there have been a lot of controversial issues surrounding the legislative process towards the amendment of the Electoral Act ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The Nigerian Senate on Tuesday amended the Electoral Act, altering Section 60 to mandate electronic transmission of election results to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) Result Viewing Portal (IREV), while simultaneously creating a major loophole that allows manual result sheets to prevail where electronic transmission fails.
The amendment was adopted during plenary proceedings monitored by SaharaReporters, with the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, presiding.
Under the revised provision, presiding officers at polling units are required to electronically transmit results to the IREV portal after the completion of voting. However, the amendment provides that where electronic transmission is unsuccessful due to communication or network failure, the manual result sheet — Form EC8A — shall become the primary basis for collation and declaration of results.
While putting the motion to a vote, Akpabio insisted that lawmakers who opposed the amendment should formally move a counter motion.
“It’s very simple. If you disagree with him, move your counter motion. So, if you agree with him, you agree with me when I put the votes,” Akpabio said.
He explained that the motion sought to rescind an earlier decision of the Senate concerning Section 60, Subsection 3 of the Electoral Act.
“When I ask for the votes, when I ask for your consent, let me read the motion. His earlier motion, which passed in our last sitting, he has sought to rescind that. That is in respect of Section 60, Subsection 3. And this is what he said,” Akpabio stated.
Reading the amended clause, the Senate President said: “That the presiding officer shall electronically transmit the results from each polling unit to the IREV portal. And such transmission shall be done after the prescribed Form EC8A has been signed and stamped by the presiding officer and/or countersigned by the candidates or polling agents where available at the polling units, because sometimes you don’t see any polling agent.”
He added that the law now makes provision for situations where electronic transmission is not possible.
“Provided that if the electronic transmission of the results fails as a result of communication failure — in other words, maybe network or otherwise — and it becomes impossible to transmit the results electronically in Form EC8A signed and stamped by the presiding officer and/or countersigned by the candidates or polling agents where available at the polling units, the Form EC8A shall in such a case be the primary source of collation and declaration of results,” Akpabio had said.
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