The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has raised the alarm over what it described as “statistically implausible and suspicious” voter pre-registration figures released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), accusing the electoral body of allowing anomalies that could undermine Nigeria’s democracy.
According to the party, the numbers emanating from Osun State and the South West zone are not only unbelievable but point to possible fraud, with Osun alone accounting for nearly 400,000 new registrations in just seven days—figures higher than what the state recorded in four years combined.
In a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC warned:
“These fantastic figures suggest either another technical ‘glitch’ in INEC’s digital registration system, or a more troubling possibility of deliberate manipulation of data to lay the ground for a more sinister agenda in the coming elections. In either case, INEC has some explanations to give.”
The party pointed out that in Osun State alone, 393,269 pre-registrations were recorded in one week. To put this in perspective, Osun added only 275,815 new voters between 2019 and 2023—a period of four years. In other words, Osun supposedly registered more voters in seven days than in an entire electoral cycle.
“Even at its highest point of political mobilisation in 2022, Osun never produced more than 823,124 votes cast in the governorship election. Now, by some miracle, nearly 20 percent of all eligible adults in the state have rushed to register. This is not just unusual, it is statistically implausible,” the statement stressed.
The ADC also flagged the wider South West figures, noting that the zone alone accounted for an extraordinary 848,359 pre-registrations—an astonishing 67 percent of the national total. By contrast, the entire South East recorded just 1,998 registrations.
The statement added:
“To further illustrate, three states—Osun, Lagos, and Ogun—make up 54.2 percent of all pre-registrations in Nigeria, while five states combined—Ebonyi, Imo, Enugu, Abia, and Adamawa—barely recorded 4,153, or 0.2 percent. Meanwhile, the entire North East recorded just 6.1 percent. These figures defy logic.”
The party warned that the anomalies risk compromising the integrity of Nigeria’s democracy.
“The voter register is the foundation upon which the entire electoral process rests. If the foundation is compromised, it brings the integrity of the elections into question. Nigerians still remember the bitter consequences of flawed voter rolls and technical ‘glitches’ in past elections. Our democracy cannot withstand another one.”
The ADC therefore called on INEC to urgently conduct and publish a forensic audit of the first-week pre-registration data, with a state-by-state breakdown of both physical and online registrations. It further demanded that INEC disclose server logs, bandwidth distribution, and regional access reports for the registration portal during the period in question.
The statement urged opposition parties, election monitoring groups, fact-checking organisations, and civil society to jointly interrogate the anomalies.
“We also invite our partners in the international community—the United Nations, the African Union, ECOWAS, and Nigeria’s democratic allies—to take early interest in these developments, as the credibility of the 2027 elections begins with the integrity of this voter register.”
Concluding, the ADC warned that silence in the face of such anomalies would amount to complicity.
“History has shown that when questions about the voter register are left unanswered, the consequences go beyond politics; they touch on national stability itself. The time to act is now,” the statement declared.
