The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has expressed a lack of confidence in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to protect its votes during the 2027 general elections.
The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, stated this during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday.
He noted that the party is making preparations to independently tally its votes, warning that repeated technical failures by INEC continue to undermine public trust in the electoral body.
He said, “Don’t forget that I ran for Senate in the 2023 election. What many of us did, and not only myself, was that we trusted INEC when they told us there would be automatic transmission of results to the IReV.
“Then what happened afterwards? They said that, due to some technical glitch, the results could not be transmitted automatically to the IReV. So we have been beaten by that, and we are now twice shy. We say we will not allow it to happen again. We are no longer naive.
“We can no longer trust INEC to protect our votes for us. We are saying that we will vigilantly guard our own votes. We will protect our own votes.
“If the results at the end of the day reflect the true votes that came from the polling units, we will accept them. But if they do not, we are not going to accept them. We are making provisions to collate our own votes,” he added.
Backstory…
Concerns over the protection of votes have become an increasingly prominent issue as Nigeria moves closer to the 2027 general elections.
Opposition politicians and groups have repeatedly raised questions about the credibility of the electoral process, particularly based on their experiences during the 2023 elections.
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) had raised similar concerns as far back as July 2026, when its National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, said the party would not rely solely on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to protect its votes.
Peter Obi has also spoken publicly about the need for voters to protect their ballots. In September, the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) urged Nigerians to take responsibility for safeguarding their votes
Obi had made an even stronger statement days earlier in Port Harcourt, saying he was prepared to protect his votes in the 2027 election even at the risk of his life
