Get Guardian on GoogleThe Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Olatunji Disu, has said the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is ready for the successful conduct of the2027 general elections.
Disu gave this assurance in Abuja yesterday when a delegation led by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for West Africa and the Sahel paid him a courtesy visit.
With the police readiness, former Vice President of the World Bank, Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili, called for the immediate constitution of an independent Citizens’ Electoral Rescue Team to oversee the clean-up of the voter register and restore public confidence in the elections.
The IGP told the delegation, led by Dr Leonardo Simao, that the NPF had adequately been prepared for the elections.
“As I speak with you, we have embarked on the training of our officers and have updated their knowledge about the elections. We have taken note of peculiar issues that will be related to the 2027 general elections.
“Even though NPF is in charge of the internal security of the country and the elections, we know that we cannot do it alone. We can only succeed with the assistance of our sister security agencies. So, we have been having collaborative meetings and trainings together,” he said.
Disu said the force had held a series of training sessions with personnel of the Army, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and the Department of State Services (DSS) in preparation for the election.
He said the training sessions also involved how to include everybody in the election process, especially persons living with disabilities.
According to him, officers had been trained to identify persons with disabilities and know what to do when they encounter them.
“So far so good, we are not afraid. We are confident that even if the elections start tomorrow, the NPF is ready to do what is expected of the force. We are ever ready to go, and we want to assure you that Nigerians will not be disappointed with the activities of the police in the election,” he said.
Earlier, the leader of the delegation said there was always competition among political entities, with emotions attached to it. He said such emotions could lead to violence if not controlled, adding that violence had always been a concern in West Africa and Israel.
EZEKWESILI, in an open memorandum dated November 3, 2026, warned that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had lost the credibility required to conduct credible elections, following revelations that its registration officers allegedly manipulated the preliminary voter register with artificial intelligence (AI)-generated photographs, duplicate records and other fabricated entries.
The former Minister of Education argued that INEC could not independently investigate the alleged fraud, insisting that the involvement of its personnel had created a conflict of interest that required external intervention.
Her position followed televised interviews by INEC’s Director of Information and Communication Technology, Dr Lawrence Bayode, on October 30 and November 1, in which he reportedly disclosed that registration officers had used their official login credentials to introduce fraudulent entries into the preliminary register across several states.
Bayode was also quoted as saying that the commission was aware of those involved and how the manipulation occurred, while describing public trust in the electoral body as being at “ground zero”.
Ezekwesili described the development as an insider sabotage of the country’s electoral system, warning that allowing INEC to investigate and supervise the correction of the register without independent oversight could undermine the credibility of the 2027 elections.
According to her, the commission’s explanation that the affected document was only a preliminary register did not address the seriousness of the situation, as the document would form the basis for the final register to be used in the elections.
The founder of #FixPolitics as well as the School of Politics, Policy and Governance (SPPG) urged civil society organisations, professional associations, religious leaders, young Nigerians, the judiciary and the international community to support the proposed intervention before the final voter register is certified.
She warned that failure to address the alleged manipulation immediately could worsen political tensions and threaten the country’s democratic stability ahead of the 2027 elections.
