The Executive Director of #FixPolitics Africa, Anthony Ubani, has censured the Independent National Electoral Commission for endorsing an election in which widespread malpractices were reported by observers.

The Ekiti State governorship election of June 20, 2026, was accepted by INEC, despite complaints by local and international observers that the poll was marred by irregularities, vote-buying and other forms of electoral fraud that tainted the sanctity of the ballot.

In a statement, the governance and leadership development expert wondered if the June 20 poll in Ekiti is the template for rigging the 2027 general election.

According to Ubani, the election should trouble every Nigerian who still believes that elections are meant to reflect the free will of citizens.

He faulted some of the human resources and technologies deployed for the exercise, especially the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System.

“On paper, it was peaceful. On paper, voting materials arrived in many places. On paper, BVAS worked better than in some previous elections. On paper, INEC declared a winner and uploaded results. But democracy does not live on paper. Democracy lives in the freedom of the voter. By that test, Ekiti was not a clean election. It was a warning,” he said.

INEC declared Governor Biodun Oyebanji of the APC winner with 319,224 votes. PDP’s Wole Oluyede came a distant second with 40,543 votes, while ADC’s Dare Bejide came third with 12,872 votes.

Ubani said: “The margin was massive. The result looked decisive. That is exactly why those who care about democracy must look beyond the mathematics of collation and ask a deeper question: were the votes freely given, or were they bought, intimidated, monitored, manipulated and harvested? That is where Ekiti becomes frightening.

“Election observers did not merely complain about vague irregularities. They reported concrete patterns that go to the heart of electoral integrity. CJID reported widespread vote trading in several local government areas, including Emure, Oye, Ikole, Ido/Osi, Ijero, Ekiti West and Ikere. In Ikere, party agents were reportedly offering voters as much as N15,000 for votes. In Ijero, the amount was reportedly up to N10,000. In Emure, numbered vouchers were allegedly being issued for later redemption away from the polling unit. This is not democracy; this is electoral commerce.”

He noted that the EU-SDGN Election Observation Hub and Kimpact Development Initiative recorded 24 incidents of electoral offences across nine local government areas, with vote buying and voter intimidation emerging as major concerns.

“They also identified attempts to compromise the secrecy of the ballot, especially in Irepodun/Ifelodun and Ado-Ekiti. Once ballot secrecy is compromised, the voter is no longer free. A vote cast under surveillance, inducement, fear, or pressure is not a free vote. It is a captured vote. This is where INEC must answer hard questions.

“INEC cannot continue to define a successful election narrowly as one in which materials arrived, voting took place and results were announced. That is a shallow definition of electoral success. A credible election is not just about counting ballots. It is about protecting the voter before, during, and after the ballot is cast. If voters are being openly induced, if party agents are hovering around citizens, if ballot secrecy is being compromised, if observers are harassed, if journalists are attacked while documenting suspicious activities, then the election has failed in a more fundamental sense.”

The tragedy of Ekiti, he asserted, is that the process may have looked administratively tidy while being morally rotten. “That is why Ekiti looks less like an isolated state election and more like a rehearsal for 2027. If this lesson is carried into the 2027 presidential election, Nigeria will not merely be conducting an election; it will be conducting a national auction.”

He did not spare the police. He said, “The police also have questions to answer. Before and during the election, security agencies warned against vote buying, vote selling, ballot-box snatching, intimidation and other electoral offences. But warnings are not enough. The real test is enforcement. Where were the arrests? Where are the prosecutions? Where are the public updates?

“Nigeria has seen this movie before. In the 2022 Ekiti governorship election, EFCC arrested suspected vote buyers. Years later, there is little public evidence of successful prosecution. That failure has consequences. When electoral offenders are not punished, the state sends a clear message: commit the offence today, celebrate the result tomorrow, and wait for Nigerians to move on. This is how impunity becomes tradition.”

Ekiti has therefore exposed the central weakness of Nigeria’s electoral system ahead of 2027. INEC has invested heavily in technology, but Nigeria’s election problem is no longer only technological. BVAS may authenticate the voter, but it cannot authenticate the voter’s freedom. IReV may display result sheets, but it cannot show whether a voter was paid before voting. Electronic upload may improve transparency, but it cannot cure a polling unit that has already been turned into a marketplace.

For him, the 2027 presidential election will not be saved by gadgets alone, but by courage, enforcement, transparency, integrity and consequences.

Going forward, the governance expert tasked INEC to publish a full incident report on Ekiti, polling unit by polling unit, showing every reported case of vote buying, voter intimidation, ballot secrecy violation, BVAS malfunction, observer harassment, journalist attack, and suspicious PVC-related allegation.

Ubani’s other suggested solutions are, “INEC must work with the police, EFCC, ICPC and other relevant agencies to identify and prosecute electoral offenders; strengthen ballot secrecy; publicly clarify all concerns about result upload, voter accreditation figures and stop treating off-cycle elections as local events.”

He warned that “if Nigeria does not act now, Ekiti may be remembered not as a state governorship election, but as the dry run for the capture of 2027.”

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