INEC Moves Voter Registration Fully Online Ahead Of 2027
Voters who have lost or damaged their Permanent Voter Cards will soon be able to download replacements without visiting any office, as the Independent National Electoral Commission moves to digitise key parts of Nigeria’s voting process ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The INEC Chairman, Prof. Joash Amupitan, disclosed the plan on Wednesday in Abuja when he received the Director General of the National Orientation Agency, Lanre Issa Onilu, who paid a courtesy visit to the commission’s headquarters.
Amupitan explained that the downloadable PVC option would not be automatic or open to first time registrants who have never collected a physical card. “It is not every PVC that is downloadable. You must have gotten your PVC before and it must be that the PVC is lost, defaced or if you cannot read your numbers there,” he stated. He added that affected voters must formally lodge a complaint at least 90 days before an election for the commission to process the replacement.
The commission will pilot the technology during the off cycle Osun governorship election holding on August 15, 2026. Amupitan also disclosed that INEC was finalising work on a system that would allow eligible citizens to complete voter registration entirely online, without visiting INEC offices for physical biometric capture. “So hopefully in the next few days, we will be testing it as soon as the commission approves it,” he said, noting that the innovations were aimed at eliminating the feeling of disenfranchisement among citizens.
The reforms speak directly to one of the most persistent weaknesses in Nigeria’s electoral system. Ahead of the 2023 general elections, INEC recorded more than 93.4 million registered voters, yet millions of printed PVCs were never collected, locking otherwise eligible citizens out of the ballot. The pattern has persisted at state level. In Osun, where the pilot will run, the commission reported 1,954,800 registered voters with 360,794 PVCs uncollected as of 2025, one of the highest uncollected figures in the country. The state has 3,763 polling units across 332 electoral wards.
Card replacement has historically been slow and frustrating, requiring physical visits, long queues and repeated follow ups at local government offices. A downloadable card, tied to an existing biometric record, is designed to remove that bottleneck entirely for previously verified voters.
The announcement also comes against the backdrop of disinformation pressures on the commission. During the recent Ekiti off cycle governorship election, Amupitan dismissed viral claims that INEC had warehoused over 400,000 PVCs to favour a particular party, warning that such falsehoods discourage voters from turning out. His appeal to the NOA during Wednesday’s visit centred on joint voter education, with the chairman noting that fine BVAS machines and an optimised IReV portal “mean nothing if the citizens remain detached” or uneducated about the power of their votes.
If the Osun pilot succeeds, the downloadable PVC and full online registration could significantly expand access before the 2027 polls, particularly for young first time voters and Nigerians in hard to reach areas. Attention will now turn to how the commission verifies downloaded cards at polling units, safeguards the system against identity fraud, and clears the national backlog of uncollected cards. INEC has indicated that formal approval and public testing of the online registration platform are expected within days.