Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), says his political organisation will independently track polling-unit results during the 2027 presidential election as part of efforts to prevent a recurrence of the controversies that followed the 2023 election.
Obi disclosed this during an interview with ARISE News, where he said his supporters would closely monitor the electoral process from the polling units through the various stages of result collation.
The former Anambra State governor stressed the need for votes to be properly counted, recorded and transmitted at every polling unit.
“We must make sure that at every polling unit, the votes are counted, the votes are recorded properly, the votes are transmitted properly,” Obi said.
He said his campaign plans to operate what he described as “dual transmission”, under which polling-unit results would be transmitted through the official electoral process while copies would also be sent to the campaign’s situation room for independent verification.
The proposed strategy is intended to give the campaign its own record of polling-unit results, which can be compared with figures generated through the official collation process.
Obi’s plan comes against the backdrop of his concerns over the conduct of the 2023 presidential election, particularly the challenges associated with uploading presidential polling-unit results to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Result Viewing Portal, IReV.
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INEC declared Bola Tinubu the winner of the 2023 presidential election with 8,794,726 votes. Atiku Abubakar came second with 6,984,520 votes, while Obi, who contested the election under the Labour Party, finished third with 6,101,533 votes.
Obi challenged the outcome in court, but his petition was dismissed by the Presidential Election Petition Court. The Supreme Court subsequently affirmed Tinubu’s election.
Despite the court rulings, Obi has continued to maintain that the experience of the 2023 election demonstrated the need for political parties and their supporters to pay closer attention to the counting, recording and transmission of results at polling units.
He said supporters should not simply cast their ballots and leave but should remain at polling units to ensure that their votes are properly counted and documented.
INEC has also said it learnt lessons from the technical challenges experienced during the 2023 election and has promised improvements ahead of the 2027 presidential election.
The commission, now headed by Professor Joash Amupitan, is expected to implement measures aimed at strengthening the electoral process and addressing some of the shortcomings identified during previous elections.
Obi also renewed his pledge to serve only one four-year term if elected president, arguing that four years would be sufficient for a purposeful administration to implement its agenda and put Nigeria on a new path.
With the 2027 presidential election approaching, Obi’s proposed independent result-tracking system places renewed emphasis on polling-unit-level monitoring and verification.
For Obi, securing the mandate in 2027 will not end with voters casting their ballots. His political organisation, he says, intends to follow the results from the polling units through the collation process to the final declaration, ensuring that votes are properly counted, recorded and transmitted.
