INEC to hold nationwide mock accreditation and voting exercise on 28 November

The Independent National Electoral Commission will conduct a nationwide mock accreditation and voting exercise on 28 November 2026 to test its systems before the 2027 general elections. INEC chairman Prof. Joash Amupitan announced it on Thursday at Chatham House in London, according to Naija News, Head Topics and Daily Post.

In a statement from Abuja signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Adedayo Oketola, Amupitan said the exercise will run across all states of the federation and simulate the presidential election. “On the 28th of this month, we will conduct a mock accreditation and voting exercise across all states of the Federation to simulate the presidential election and verify that we have gotten both accreditation and electronic result transmission right,” he said.

The test is meant to confirm that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, and the electronic transmission of results work properly. Both were sources of public anger after the 2023 elections. Amupitan said the commission has since taken steps on equipment. It has bought more BVAS machines and reduced the number of registered voters assigned to each device from 1,250 to 850, and it is building climate-controlled storage in the states because the 2023 failures were linked to heat and poor storage.

He also described a new rule for results. Polling unit figures that are inaccurate, or that show over-voting, will not be uploaded to the INEC Result Viewing Portal, IReV. Head Topics reported that results will be verified in the presence of party agents before upload. “Once a result appears on IReV, citizens can trust what they see,” he said, adding that collation would then become a formality.

Amupitan said INEC's review of 2023 showed that the worst problems arose at collation centres rather than polling units, and that the commission considered a new technology for 2027 but chose to harden what it has because time is short.

The chairman also raised election security. Head Topics reported that he disclosed an intelligence finding of a plot by bandits to attack INEC ad hoc staff, especially members of the National Youth Service Corps, to disrupt the 2027 elections. He said the plot emerged through the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security and that the suspects are being prosecuted at the Federal High Court by the DSS. The commission has also begun distributing non-sensitive materials to some states.

With the presidential election fixed for 16 January 2027, the 28 November exercise gives INEC and the parties an early look at how the accreditation and result transmission systems behave.