The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman, Joash Amupitan, says adequate funding is critical to securing and conducting the 2027 general elections.

Mr Amupitan said this while delivering a goodwill message at the sixth edition of a retreat for senior police officers in Owerri.

This is contained in a statement on Wednesday by the chief press secretary to the INEC chairman, Adedayo Oketola.

The retreat, organised under the theme, ‘Developing a Nigeria Police Roadmap for Effective Management of Security During Elections,’ focused on electoral security.

The INEC chairman said sustained funding was necessary to provide the security and logistics required for effective elections nationwide.

He said INEC’s funding was constitutionally provided as a first-line charge on the consolidated revenue fund.

However, Mr Amupitan said the scale of the commission’s responsibilities required sustained financial support to discharge its constitutional and statutory duties effectively.

He said INEC conducted presidential, National Assembly, governorship and State House of Assembly elections across the country.

The commission, he added, was also responsible for voter registration and the registration of political parties.

Mr Amupitan said INEC’s statutory powers to request security deployment for elections and voter registration made security integral to the electoral process.

“Sometimes, it is not what you would like to do that you are able to do because of financial constraints,” he said.

He said government agencies, including the police and INEC, had to operate within available allocations and approved appropriations.

Mr Amupitan stressed that voter registration remained the foundation of credible elections, warning that inaccurate or outdated registers could undermine electoral inclusiveness.

He said election expenditure, including security-related costs, should be treated as a collective national responsibility because INEC conducts elections across Nigeria’s three tiers of government.

The chairman said adequate funding was particularly important for deploying personnel and electoral materials to local government areas, wards, registration areas and polling units.

He said inadequate logistics could undermine elections even when security agencies successfully maintained peace during the electoral process.

Mr Amupitan said security and logistics had become priorities under his leadership, adding that INEC was working with government and security agencies ahead of 2027.

He highlighted the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) as a platform for coordinating INEC, security and relevant government agencies.

He said ICCES emerged after the 2011 general elections following concerns over post-election violence and had evolved into a structured election-security mechanism.

The INEC chairman said stronger inter-agency coordination would be necessary ahead of 2027, with the police remaining the lead agency for election security.

Mr Amupitan cited recent off-cycle elections as demonstrating the importance of adequate security and coordination in preventing incidents from disrupting electoral processes.

He urged stakeholders to apply lessons from recent elections to strengthen intelligence gathering, logistics and inter-agency coordination before the 2027 polls.

Mr Amupitan said Nigerians expected an effective electoral system but must recognise that achieving such standards required adequate resources.

“In Nigeria, we want the best. We want our electoral system to be 100 per cent.

“But sometimes we don’t ask ourselves the question: if we want the nation to be perfect, there must be a cost for it,” he said.

He urged relevant authorities to provide INEC and security agencies with sufficient resources to discharge their respective responsibilities effectively.

Mr Amupitan also urged senior police managers to maintain professional neutrality, proactive intelligence gathering and seamless inter-agency coordination to protect electoral integrity.

He expressed optimism that the Owerri retreat would produce an actionable roadmap for strengthening election security ahead of the 2027 general elections.

Amupitan was accompanied by national commissioners Ken Nnamdi Ukeagu and Rear Adm. Jamila Malaga (Rtd.), Imo REC, Chukwuemeka Ibeziakor and Mr Oketola, the INEC spokesperson. 

(NAN)