Osun: Follow the ballot, follow the security chain
The reflections of a former Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) on the Osun governorship election deserve serious attention. They offer an insider’s experiential perspective on vulnerabilities in Nigeria’s electoral process – particularly what happens after voting ends.
The warning is simple but profound: an election can be peaceful at the polling unit and still be compromised during counting, transportation and collation.
The electoral chain does not end at the polling unit. It runs from:
Polling Unit → Ward → LGA → State Collation → Declaration.
Each transition is a potential point of vulnerability.
Of particular concern is the allegation that political actors may, after monitoring voting trends, exploit or manufacture insecurity to disrupt counting or force relocation of collation. This allegation requires verification, but the possibility itself demands vigilance.
Where security is invoked to relocate or interrupt collation, stakeholders should be able to establish: Who identified the threat? Who assessed it? Who authorised the relocation? Where were the materials taken? Were party agents and accredited observers allowed to accompany them? Was the chain of custody preserved?
Security must protect the electoral process – not become a mechanism through which transparency is lost.
Do not blame INEC automatically – or absolve it
The former REC’s intervention rightly challenges the tendency to attribute every electoral infraction to INEC. But this should not become an argument for absolving INEC.
The proper question is:
“Who did what, at what stage, with what authority, and with what effect on the integrity of the election?”
Electoral misconduct may involve political actors, electoral officials, security personnel or combinations of them. Accountability must follow the evidence.
The reported difficulty in verifying police deployment at polling and collation centres is also troubling. Security personnel deployed for elections should be identifiable, verifiable and accountable. Where results or election materials move under security protection, the security chain should be auditable.
The real test begins after voting
For Osun, the critical question is not merely whether voting is peaceful. It is whether the voters’ choices survive intact through counting, transportation, collation, verification, aggregation and declaration.
Civil society and election observers should therefore monitor not only polling units but also:
– movement and custody of election materials;
– security deployments;
– claims of violence used to disrupt or relocate collation;
– access of party agents and observers to collation centres;
– discrepancies between results at different stages; and
– the identity of officials and security personnel making critical decisions.
A warning for 2027
The former REC’s intervention should not become another post-election lament. It should become a 2027 electoral-security warning.
Nigeria needs an electoral system in which every critical actor is identifiable, every major decision is documented, every result is traceable and every abuse is independently investigated.
RULAAC therefore calls on INEC, the security agencies, political parties, candidates, observers, civil society and the media to remain vigilant throughout the entire electoral chain.
Do not stop watching when voting stops.
Protect the voter. Protect the ballot. Protect the result. Protect the chain of custody.
That is how we protect the integrity of Nigeria’s 2027 democratic process.
— Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC)
