The African Democratic Congress has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission to tighten the screening process for academics appointed as returning and collation officers ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The party’s warning comes in the wake of recent reports that more than 600 senior professors and lecturers from public universities across Northern Nigeria have publicly thrown their weight behind President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s re-election bid. While the political opposition acknowledged that academic staff possess every citizen’s right to freedom of association and political expression, it argued that crossing into open partisanship creates a glaring conflict of interest when those same individuals are later deployed to oversee sensitive polling duties.
Speaking through a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, the party emphasized that public neutrality is non-negotiable for anyone tasked with handling the ultimate outcome of a democratic contest. The leadership stressed that an individual cannot actively campaign for a candidate and simultaneously be trusted to impartially tally votes and declare winners in a race involving that same candidate.
To safeguard the integrity of the ballot, Zoyols News understands that the opposition party is pressing the electoral umpire to roll out strict, transparent guidelines that explicitly bar any academic or ad-hoc worker with known partisan leanings from serving in collation roles. Furthermore, the political platform urged INEC to publish the roster of prospective returning and collation officers well ahead of election day. Proponents of this measure argue that early disclosure would grant political parties, civil society organizations, and ordinary citizens adequate time to vet the list and flag potential biases.
Ultimately, the party noted that a credible election rests just as heavily on the perceived and actual neutrality of the officials managing vote tabulation as it does on the voting exercise itself.
