Protesters Embarrass INEC Chairman Amupitan In London Over Voters’ Register, Rigging Plans of 2027 elections

By Monday Peters, Abuja

Nigerian protesters have embarrassed the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Joash Amupitan, in London on Thursday over alleged irregularities in the preliminary voters’ register ahead of the 2027 general elections. The demonstrators surrounded the vehicle conveying Amupitan outside Chatham House, where he was scheduled to speak at a panel discussion on Nigeria’s preparations for the 2027 elections.

The protesters, believed to be Nigerians in the Diaspora, accused the electoral commission of compromising its impartiality and favouring President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress. They demanded Amupitan’s resignation, describing INEC as a “criminal organisation” and citing alleged duplicate voter registrations, artificial intelligence-generated photographs and questionable polling units in the preliminary voters’ register.

The protest came amid growing public criticism of INEC following the circulation of images and records purportedly showing suspicious entries in the voters’ register, including photographs suspected to have been generated or manipulated using artificial intelligence. The controversy intensified after the commission acknowledged irregularities in the registration process and announced investigations into the affected records.

On November 9, Amupitan disclosed that INEC had removed 1,608,660 invalid voter registrations following a review of the 2025/2026 Continuous Voter Registration exercise. The commission also announced that 873 records belonging to verified deceased persons had been removed, bringing the total number of deleted records to 1,609,553, while 54 persons across 10 states had been identified as allegedly complicit and would face disciplinary action, including possible prosecution.

However, the authenticity of the INEC statement had never been independently verified.