Nigeria’s electoral commission says it is reviewing more than 4,800 claims and about 600 objections to the preliminary voter register before final certification on 15 December 2026. INEC chairman Joash Amupitan gave the figures at a meeting with an ECOWAS pre-election fact-finding mission in Abuja on 30 October, as reported by Punch and BusinessDay.
The figures reflected submissions received by 29 October, according to Punch’s account. Claims were lodged where the register was displayed, while objections passed through electoral officers and Resident Electoral Commissioners. Amupitan described most claims as corrections or other minor matters and said publication online was also helping identify discrepancies.
The chairman said the register contained more than 103 million registered citizens. His commitment was to address valid issues before the final register was certified. The numbers are therefore an account of requests under review, rather than a finding that every challenged entry is fraudulent or that all requested changes have been approved.
INEC also plans a nationwide mock accreditation exercise in November to test voter accreditation and electronic results transmission. Amupitan said polling-unit results would be authenticated before reaching the commission’s results-viewing portal, IReV. These are described as preparations and safeguards; the announcement does not establish that the forthcoming rehearsal has already succeeded.
The commission’s published election calendar lists presidential and National Assembly voting for 16 January 2027, followed by governorship and state assembly elections on 6 February. Those scheduled polls are separate from the November rehearsal. The official calendar, rather than an inferred date from a training exercise, provides the relevant election timetable.
The ECOWAS delegation was led by former Sierra Leone vice-president Victor Bockarie Foh. Its work includes assessing readiness and engaging political parties, government, election officials and civil society. Amupitan also described regional readiness visits and adjustments to deployment plans in response to terrain and security challenges.
The practical issue now is whether the commission resolves the recorded claims, documents the resulting changes and completes its planned checks before the polls. Public scrutiny of a preliminary list is part of a review process. This report records the commission’s stated figures and timetable; it does not independently certify the register or predict the election’s outcome.