It was a scene of high drama outside the prestigious Chatham House in London on Thursday — the vehicle conveying Nigeria’s election umpire was blocked, his path cut off, as angry Nigerians in the Diaspora demanded his immediate resignation.
At the centre of the storm was the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Joash Amupitan, who had arrived to speak on Nigeria’s preparations for the high-stakes 2027 general elections.
Instead, he met a wall of placards and chants accusing the commission of betraying its mandate.
—“INEC Is Now A Criminal Organisation”—
The protesters — mostly young Nigerians living in the UK — accused INEC of surrendering its independence to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
For months, tension has been building back home over the credibility of the preliminary voters’ register for 2027. Images flooding social media allegedly show duplicate registrations, ghost polling units, and bizarre AI-generated faces smiling from voter cards — entries critics say could only have been manufactured.
The protesters seized on those images, calling the register “doctored” and the commission a “criminal organisation” plotting to rig 2027 before a single vote is cast.
—INEC Admits Rot — Deletes 1.6 Million Entries–‘
The protest came just days after INEC itself confirmed the fears.
On November 9, Amupitan admitted that the Commission had deleted a staggering 1,608,660 invalid registrations after auditing the 2025/2026 Continuous Voter Registration, plus 873 records of verified dead persons — a total of 1,609,553 fake entries wiped off the register.
He disclosed that 54 persons across 10 states had been fingered in the fraud — for multiple registrations, photo substitution and other violations — and would face prosecution.
INEC, however, tried to douse the fire, claiming some of the viral questionable entries date back to 2011 and were not from the latest exercise.
That explanation has failed to calm Nigerians who fear a repeat of past electoral crises.
—Shadow of Yakubu’s Ambassadorial Posting—
Fueling the distrust is the controversial diplomatic appointment of Amupitan’s predecessor, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.
After leaving INEC, Yakubu was nominated by President Tinubu in November 2025 among 32 ambassadorial nominees and posted to Qatar — a move opposition figures cite as proof that loyalty to the presidency is rewarded, and that INEC chairmen do not leave office neutral.
Inside Chatham House, Amupitan was forced to confront that perception head-on.
“I’m not going to accept any appointment from anybody because coming to serve here is based on trust,” he declared, pledging to reject any future political or diplomatic offer that could taint his neutrality.
He also announced new technical safeguards to prevent false results from being uploaded to INEC’s Result Viewing Portal, IReV, during the 2027 polls — a direct response to the trauma of 2023 when glitches on the portal triggered nationwide outrage.
—2027 On The Brink?—
But for many Nigerians, reassurances are no longer enough. From Abuja to London, the demand is growing louder: publish the full register, open it for public verification, and prove that 2027 will not be decided by ghost voters and AI faces.
As one protester outside Chatham House shouted, “If the register is fake, the election is fake.”
With 2027 fast approaching, the credibility battle for Nigeria’s democracy is no longer just at home — it has gone global, and INEC is firmly in the dock.
See video below:
