A leading election observation group, Yiaga Africa, has described Saturday’s governorship election in Ekiti State, as a critical test of Nigeria’s new Electoral Act 2026, warning that the credibility of the poll will depend on electoral preparedness, transparency in results management, and the neutrality of security agencies.
The organisation said this in a pre-election statement issued ahead of the June 20 governorship election, which will be conducted across 2,445 polling units in Ekiti State’s 16 local government areas.
Yiaga Africa noted that the election is the first governorship poll to be conducted under the Electoral Act 2026 and will serve as a major assessment of new provisions relating to electronic transmission of results, administrative review, and results collation.
It highlighted INEC’s introduction of the e-EC8A result validation process, which enables polling officials to enter polling unit results directly into the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, allowing verification against scanned copies uploaded to the INEC Result Viewing Portal, IReV.
According to the organisation, 1,059,360 registered voters are expected to participate in the election, with the Independent National Electoral Commission reporting a Permanent Voter Card collection rate of 97.1 per cent.
Thirteen political parties are fielding candidates in the contest. However, Yiaga Africa expressed concern over the absence of female candidates and persons with disabilities among the contestants, describing it as evidence of continued exclusion in Nigeria’s political recruitment and nomination processes.
While acknowledging INEC’s efforts in conducting stakeholder engagements, training election officials, organising mock accreditation exercises, and making logistics arrangements despite
