By Gabriel Ewepu

ABUJA – AHEAD of the 2027 general elections, an election observer, KIMPACT Development Initiative, KDI, Wednesday, called for independence of the nation’s electoral umpire, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and security agencies to restore trust and confidence of Nigerians in the electoral process.

The call was made by the Executive Director, KDI, Bukola Idowu, in order to ensure there is no voter-apathy and other irregularities in the electoral process while speaking on the sidelines of the ‘Electoral Integrity Summit’, organized by KDI.

Meanwhile, KDI unveiled three reports: ‘Financing the Vote….political finance dynamics in the 2025 Anambra off-circle governorship election’; Violence Contained: Key Lessons from the 2025 Anambra Governorship Election; and ‘Did the number tally?…a statistical analysis of the result on IReV for the the 2025 Anambra off-circle governorship elections’.

Idowu said: “What we need to do is to make sure that all our electoral institutions are independent if we really want to have good elections, and by electoral institution I mean, number one, INEC, number two, the security agencies, number three, the courts – all these institutions have to be independent to be able to administer the regulations and to be able to enforce compliance to the law, and that is what we should be looking at.

“INEC needs to improve on these three major areas: Number one, in terms of their regulations, supervision, it looks like the political parties are doing whatever they like and nobody is checking them in terms of their spending, in terms of their meeting their deadlines.

“Number two, in terms of election result management. INEC needs to improve in that area, and then again, the synergy between INEC and the security agencies needs to be high. They need to assure people about peaceful elections, and that is one of the things that will make people to come out and vote.”

However, he said the Independence of these institutions is not going to be automatic rather the political will is needed for that to make the law work.

“For instance, in INEC guideline in 2023, transmission of election result was there. But I read it did not work, and now there was a glitch, and nothing happened, and nobody is going to court, nobody is asking questions.

“If there is a political will, and then the citizens need to begin to demand more now, and I think things will work out”, he added.

Meanwhile, the Chairperson, Africa Electoral Justice Network, AEJN, Judge Boissie Mbha, delivered a keynote address titled ‘Building an Ecosystem for Democratic Development: The Path Towards Credible Elections in Nigeria an West Africa’, said INEC efforts are recognised and commended but there is still room for improvement.

“They are really doing a good job, as I say, INEC works closely with our own IEC, and the challenges we are experiencing are not out of the ordinary or out of this world, they are the usual challenges which you will find everywhere else in the world.

“So I know INEC is doing a good job. It can improve and there is room for improvement”, Mbah said.

However, he added that, “The challenge I see is having public trust. They should be able to garner enough public trust so that the public trusts what they are doing.”