Obidient Movement Opposes INEC’s Planned Use of Advanced Technology for 2027 Elections

# What happened

Commission's (INEC) plan to start using advanced automated tools in preparation for the 2027 general elections. Yunusa Tanko, the movement's national coordinator, issued the warning after INEC's chairman said the commission had begun deploying those tools to detect discrepancies and administrative errors in results.

# Why the movement objects

# What the movement is asking for

Movement set out concrete demands for INEC before any wider use of the technology:

• Publish a comprehensive 2027 election plan detailing the technologies, procedures and safeguards to be used.
• Submit INEC's electoral technology to an independent audit and publicly disclose the findings and corrective actions.
• Ensure transparent and verifiable result transmission so that every vote cast at the polling unit is accurately reflected in final results.
• Explain the planned use of the tools in detail and allow independent testing and public scrutiny.

Tanko also urged the INEC chairman, Joash Amupitan, to reconsider the commission's approach and said there was still time to retrace steps before the 2027 polls.

# INEC's position

At the 24th All Nigeria Editors Conference in Enugu, INEC chairman Joash Amupitan said the commission had established a dedicated division within its ICT department and developed an implementation roadmap and governance framework for the tools. He framed the framework around human oversight, transparency, data protection, cybersecurity and public trust.

Amupitan said the tools would complement, not replace, existing electoral institutions, and that automated checks on results would remain subject to human auditing and legal verification. He also noted the commission was strengthening defenses against disinformation capable of producing fake result sheets, cloned voices of officials, fabricated videos and forged documents.

# What to watch next

The dispute sets up several near-term items to monitor:

• Whether INEC publishes the requested comprehensive 2027 plan and the level of technical detail it includes.
• Whether an independent audit of INEC's electoral technology is launched, who conducts it, and whether findings are released publicly.
• Any adjustments INEC makes to its governance framework, especially around human oversight and legal verification of automated checks.
• Public and civil-society reactions to INEC's defensive measures against fabricated content and how those measures intersect with transparency demands.

# Bottom line