INEC to Conduct Mock Presidential Election Ahead 2027 Poll

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is considering a mock presidential election ahead of the 2027 general elections to test its voting technology and election-day procedures.

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INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, disclosed this in Abuja while speaking at the 13th Annual International Conference of the Association of Communication Scholars and Professionals of Nigeria (ACSPN).

He said the proposed exercise would allow the commission to test voter accreditation, electronic result transmission and public access to results under conditions similar to a real election.

Amupitan, whose keynote address was delivered by National Commissioner Sani Adam, also warned that technology alone would not guarantee credible elections.

According to him, Nigerians must understand how electoral technologies work and have confidence in the information provided by INEC.

He said the commission was therefore working towards closer integration of electoral technology and strategic communication before the 2027 elections.

A major concern, he noted, is the growing use of artificial intelligence to create convincing false videos, audio recordings and images.

Amupitan said AI-generated content could spread rapidly online, potentially reaching millions of voters before fact-checkers have enough time to verify it.

He also raised concerns about algorithm-driven political targeting, which can expose different groups of voters to conflicting messages without a shared factual foundation.

“The challenge is not technology alone. It is how technology shapes what citizens see, hear and believe,” Amupitan said.

The INEC chairman said the commission had proposed a significant budget for preparations for the 2027 elections, including spending on election technology and operations.

Part of the proposed funding will go towards replacing voter accreditation devices that were lost or damaged during the previous electoral cycle.

However, Amupitan said INEC was still waiting for the full release of the required funds.

Despite the funding situation, he said the commission’s ICT team had started discussions with manufacturers ahead of the planned procurement.

He added that work was also progressing on an audit of INEC’s electoral technology infrastructure and preparations for the proposed mock election.

The audit will examine areas such as system redundancy, penetration testing and disaster recovery capacity.

Amupitan said lessons from the 2023 elections had shown that technology could either strengthen public confidence or deepen suspicion when systems failed or were poorly understood.

He pointed to the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) as important tools designed to improve transparency.

The systems were introduced to allow citizens to verify aspects of the voting process, including polling unit results, before the figures move through the formal collation process.

For 2027, Amupitan proposed stronger cooperation between INEC, journalists, fact-checkers, communication experts and technology platforms.

He also called for faster responses to false information, greater transparency about technological weaknesses and stronger public education on election processes.

The INEC chairman urged communication scholars to work with the commission on media literacy, synthetic-content detection and training programmes for journalists and civic educators.

He said younger voters would form a larger part of the 2027 electorate and would depend heavily on smartphones and digital platforms for election information.

However, Amupitan cautioned that Nigeria should not simply copy electoral technology models from other countries.

He said any solution adopted for the 2027 elections must reflect Nigeria’s realities, including unequal internet access, multiple languages and varying levels of trust in public institutions.