Prof. Joash Amupitan, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, was jeered and insulted by Nigerian demonstrators in London on Thursday, who were protesting claims of flaws in the preliminary voters’ register before the 2027 general elections.
Outside Chatham House in London, the protesters swarmed the vehicle carrying Amupitan, who had been due to speak there at a panel discussion on Nigeria’s readiness for the 2027 elections.
The demonstrators, thought to be Nigerians living abroad, charged the electoral commission with sacrificing its impartiality and siding with President Bola Tinubu and the governing All Progressives Congress.
They further demanded that Amupitan step down, branding INEC a “criminal organization” and pointing to alleged duplicate voter registrations, photographs generated by artificial intelligence, and dubious polling units in the preliminary voters’ register.
The demonstration unfolded as public censure of INEC mounted after images and records circulated that supposedly revealed suspicious entries in the voters’ register, among them photographs suspected of being created or altered with artificial intelligence.
The uproar grew after the commission conceded that irregularities had occurred in the registration process and said it was investigating the records involved.
Amupitan revealed on November 9 that, after reviewing the 2025/2026 Continuous Voter Registration exercise, INEC had deleted 1,608,660 invalid voter registrations.
The commission further stated that 873 records of confirmed deceased persons had been removed, raising the overall number of deleted records to 1,609,553.
Amupitan also revealed that 54 individuals spread across 10 states had been identified as allegedly involved in registration irregularities and would face disciplinary measures, possibly including prosecution.
According to him, the irregularities encompassed suspected multiple registrations, swapped photographs, and violations of established registration procedures.
INEC, for its part, insisted that certain questionable entries circulating on social media traced back to earlier registration exercises as far back as 2011 and were not solely the product of the most recent exercise.
The London protest also revived scrutiny of the electoral commission’s independence, especially after Amupitan’s predecessor, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, chose to take up a diplomatic post upon leaving office.
In November 2025, Tinubu forwarded 32 ambassadorial nominees to the Senate, Yakubu among them, and he was later named Nigeria’s non-career ambassador to Qatar.
Responding to worries that he might likewise be offered a political or diplomatic appointment once his term ends, Amupitan vowed to turn down any such offer, noting that it could erode public trust in his impartiality.
“I’m not going to accept any appointment from anybody because coming to serve here is based on trust,” he stated during the Chatham House discussion.
He insisted that his role as INEC chairman obliged him to show impartiality in carrying out his duties.
Amupitan added that the commission was rolling out further technical safeguards to stop inaccurate election results from being uploaded to its Result Viewing Portal during the 2027 elections.
These steps, he said, formed part of efforts to bolster the credibility of the electoral process and allay concerns about electronic transmission and the publication of polling unit results.
The protest occurred as political stakeholders and civil society groups kept pressing INEC for greater transparency and accountability in the run-up to the 2027 general elections.
