The African Democratic Congress (ADC) says it no longer trusts the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to protect its votes in the 2027 general elections.

The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, stated this during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday.

Abdullahi said the ADC was making arrangements to independently monitor and collate its results during the elections, citing lessons from previous electoral experiences.

He recalled that during the 2023 elections, many candidates relied on INEC’s assurance that polling-unit results would be automatically transmitted to the commission’s Result Viewing Portal (IReV).

“Don’t forget that I ran for Senate in the 2023 election. What many of us did, and not only myself, was that we trusted INEC when they told us there would be automatic transmission of results to the IReV,” he said.

According to Abdullahi, the failure to automatically transmit results, which INEC attributed at the time to technical issues, affected confidence in the electoral process.

“Then what happened afterwards? They said that, due to some technical glitch, the results could not be transmitted automatically to the IReV. So we have been beaten by that, and we are now twice shy. We say we will not allow it to happen again. We are no longer naive,” Abdullahi said.

He said the ADC would accept results that accurately reflect votes cast at polling units but would reject outcomes it believes do not correspond with the actual votes of Nigerians.

“We can no longer trust INEC to protect our votes for us. We are saying that we will vigilantly guard our own votes. We will protect our own votes,” he said.

The ADC spokesman’s comments come as political parties intensify preparations for the 2027 general elections, with electoral transparency and result management emerging as key issues ahead of the polls.