027: ADC Vows Not to Trust INEC With Votes

027: ADC Vows Not to Trust INEC With Votes

The African Democratic Congress, ADC, says it will take responsibility for protecting its votes during the 2027 general elections rather than depend entirely on the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, disclosed this on Monday during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today.

Abdullahi said the party was already putting structures in place to independently collate results from polling units during the election.

He said ADC’s decision was influenced by its experience during the 2023 general elections, when it relied on INEC’s assurance that results would be automatically transmitted to the commission’s IReV platform.

According to him, the party was disappointed when technical problems affected the electronic transmission of results.

“Don’t forget that I ran for Senate in the 2023 election. What many of us did, and not only myself, was that we trusted INEC when they told us there would be automatic transmission of results to the IReV,” Abdullahi said.

He said the experience had changed the party’s approach ahead of the next general election.

“Then what happened afterwards? They said that, due to some technical glitch, the results could not be transmitted automatically to the IReV,” he added.

Abdullahi said ADC would not make the same mistake again, stressing that party agents would closely monitor the process and keep their own records.

“We are no longer naive. We can no longer trust INEC to protect our votes for us,” he said.

The ADC spokesman explained that the party would not automatically reject results declared by INEC.

Instead, he said the party would compare the declared figures with the results recorded at polling units.

“If the results at the end of the day reflect the true votes that came from the polling units, we will accept them,” Abdullahi said.

He, however, warned that ADC would challenge results that did not correspond with the figures recorded at polling units.

“But if they do not, we are not going to accept them. We are making provisions to collate our own votes,” he said.

The development comes as political parties intensify preparations for the 2027 general elections, with parties and candidates expected to strengthen their monitoring and result-collation structures ahead of the polls.

For ADC, Abdullahi said the emphasis would be on ensuring that the votes recorded at polling units are accurately reflected in the final results.