The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has reconfirmed suspected manipulation of its voter registration system by some officials, following the discovery of more than 1.5 million questionable registration records, warning that those found culpable will face severe sanctions.
The Commission’s Director of Information and Communication Technology, Dr Lawrence Bayode, disclosed this during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, anchored by Seun Okinbaloye, where he revealed that some registration officials allegedly exploited their access to the Commission’s registration platform to introduce irregularities into the national voter database.
Bayode, who described the discoveries as disturbing and embarrassing to the Commission, said the alleged manipulation was not limited to isolated locations but had been identified across several states.
He explained that the Commission deployed its Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS), which uses fingerprint and facial recognition technology, to examine the 11,088,238 registrations recorded during the 2026 Continuous Voter Registration exercise.
According to him, the system flagged 1,545,052 records for various irregularities, including suspected multiple registrations and other discrepancies requiring further investigation.
He said that although a substantial number of the flagged records had already been removed, 268,000 remained for human verification before the Commission could determine their authenticity.
Explaining why the Commission did not automatically exclude all the flagged records, Bayode said the system was designed to identify suspicious entries, while human adjudication was necessary to establish whether they were genuinely fraudulent.
He said: ‘Any suspect has to be adjudicated to a human come and confirm what the ABIS has reported.’
The ICT director disclosed that some of the questionable registrations were allegedly facilitated by officials who exploited a special registration provision designed for persons with disabilities who had incomplete fingers or no fingers.
He explained that the provision allowed eligible individuals without complete fingerprints to register through an alternative process, but some officials allegedly abused the facility to create fictitious voter profiles.
According to him, the officials allegedly used their access credentials to create such profiles, exploiting the system’s provision for special registration to introduce questionable records into the database.
Bayode also disclosed that the Commission discovered instances of identical photographs appearing against different voter profiles, as well as photographs allegedly sourced from calendars and picture frames and used to deceive its web-based registration platform.
He, however, distinguished between legitimate photographs enhanced with artificial intelligence applications and suspicious images used to create fictitious identities.
He explained that some genuine registrants might have used AI applications on their mobile phones to improve the quality of their photographs, insisting that such cases should not automatically be treated as fraudulent registrations.
The director said: ‘Some of the profiles have similar photo for different profiles with one photo. And you cannot find seven, eight people who are from the same family.’
Describing the alleged manipulation as extensive, he said some officials had identified loopholes in the registration system but, rather than report them for correction, allegedly exploited them.
Bayode, who expressed disappointment over the development, said: ‘They saw the loophole and they leveraged on the system.’
He further disclosed that the Commission had withdrawn access from the officials under investigation, adding that digital records and one-time password (OTP) authentication could help establish those responsible for the questionable registrations.
According to him, the registration system sends an OTP to an official’s registered email address or telephone number before access is granted, making it difficult for officials to claim that their credentials were used without their knowledge.
‘If anybody is using your login details to do anything, it means that you are conniving with that person,’ he said.
Bayode, however, said he was taking time to establish sufficient evidence before submitting his investigative report to the Commission, stressing that he did not want innocent officials implicated without conclusive proof.
He assured that the Commission would review the evidence and follow due process, expressing confidence that officials found culpable would face severe consequences.
He said: ‘This is an embarrassment. … Maybe the punishment now will be so huge than what they experienced in 2020.’
On the implications of the questionable registrations for the 2027 general election, the ICT director warned that fictitious voter profiles could potentially be exploited to manipulate elections if the irregularities were not identified and removed before the final register was certified.
Using a hypothetical polling unit with 800 registered voters, including 400 fictitious profiles, he explained that the production of Permanent Voter Cards for such entries could create an opportunity for electoral manipulation.
He, however, maintained that the Commission’s Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) had biometric safeguards capable of preventing individuals whose fingerprints were not captured from successfully participating in the voting process.
On concerns about the credibility of the preliminary register, Bayode explained that its release was necessary to allow Nigerians to participate in identifying questionable entries through the claims and objections process.
He said the Commission had to balance the time required to complete biometric screening with the statutory timelines for publishing the preliminary register, adding that the document released was not the final register for the 2027 elections.
He maintained that the Commission was working to complete the verification and cleaning exercise before 15 December, when the final register is expected to be certified.
The ICT director also expressed openness to independent scrutiny of the voter database, saying the Commission could engage a third party to examine the records if it considered such an exercise necessary.
He added that interested parties could request Certified True Copies of relevant records to examine the Commission’s findings and corrective measures.
On public confidence in the electoral umpire, particularly following controversies surrounding the 2023 general election, Bayode acknowledged that the latest revelations had further complicated INEC’s efforts to rebuild public trust.
He said: ‘We are trying to build the trust, whether you like it or not, the trust is on the ground zero.’
He expressed regret that the alleged actions of some officials could undermine the Commission’s efforts to restore confidence in the electoral process, insisting that INEC had learnt lessons from previous elections and continued to improve its technological systems, including BVAS and the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).
Bayode assured Nigerians that the Commission remained committed to conducting a credible 2027 general election, stressing that the integrity of the voter register was fundamental to the credibility of the entire electoral process.