Senior Advocate of Nigeria Olisa Agbakoba has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission to ensure that citizens, journalists, parties and election observers can access and report authentic polling unit results during the 2027 general election. In a letter to the commission’s chairman, Agbakoba said transparency required more than the ability to view election documents. He argued that the public should also be free to analyze, discuss and publish information from records lawfully made available, provided the figures are accurately represented. He drew a distinction between INEC’s statutory authority to declare official election results and the freedom of citizens and media organizations to report what has been publicly announced at polling units or recorded on genuine election forms.
According to Agbakoba, the power to make the formal declaration belongs to INEC and cannot be transferred to private individuals or organizations. That responsibility should not be interpreted as a blanket restriction on independent reporting of authentic results. The lawyer referred to result sheets and other electoral records and argued that access to such documents could help the public compare figures and identify inconsistencies during collation. He also highlighted the INEC Result Viewing Portal, saying its value as a transparency mechanism would be diminished if users could inspect uploaded records but were discouraged from discussing or publishing what those records showed.
Agbakoba grounded his position in Section 39 of the Constitution, which protects freedom of expression and the ability to receive and impart information. His intervention comes amid continuing debate over the transparency of vote recording, transmission, collation and declaration. The credibility of any independent analysis, however, depends on using authentic documents, making clear when results are partial and avoiding the presentation of projections as official declarations.
