When Inspector-General of Police Olatunji Rilwan Disu , on Monday, 21st September 2026, unveiled a six-pillar framework for election security at the 2026 Conference and Retreat for Senior Police Officers (CARSPO), he was doing more than announcing another policy document. He was setting out the Nigeria Police Force’s response to some of the security concerns that have shaped recent Nigerian elections, from political violence and voter intimidation to weak inter-agency coordination and concerns about the neutrality of security personnel.
The framework—built around intelligence and early warning, training and preparedness, joint command and inter-agency coordination, communication and technology, community partnership, and absolute neutrality—offers a broad security architecture for the 2027 General Elections. But its significance will ultimately depend less on the six pillars on paper than on whether they translate into timely, coordinated and impartial action across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
Intelligence and early warning
The first pillar may prove particularly important because electoral violence is rarely entirely spontaneous. Political tensions, mobilisation of thugs, threats and communal disputes can provide warning signs long before polling day.
The experience of the 2023 elections illustrates the challenge. The European Union Election Observation Mission reported that targeted attacks against candidates resumed in the week before the elections, with incidents recorded in Lagos, Ebonyi, Kaduna, Zamfara, Oyo, Rivers and Delta. It also noted insufficient security presence and, in some cases, inadequate reactions to violence, particularly during state-level campaigns.
Disu’s directive for Commissioners of Police to identify and map electoral flashpoints, criminal networks and emerging threats therefore places considerable responsibility on state commands. The question is whether information gathered through these early-warning systems will be analysed, shared and acted upon quickly enough to prevent threats from becoming election-day crises.
Training and preparedness
Election policing differs from conventional law enforcement. Officers must protect lives and property while safeguarding voters’ rights, managing crowds and enforcing electoral laws in an environment where virtually every police action can attract political scrutiny.
This makes preparedness important not simply in terms of numbers deployed but in the quality of their training and understanding of election-specific responsibilities. The 2023 experience showed that security agencies sometimes adopted restraint, but observers also documented instances where their response to electoral offences and political violence was considered inadequate. The IRI/NDI International Election Observation Mission, for example, reported that the Police were often passive in the face of electoral offences and political violence.
For the 2027 elections, training will therefore need to go beyond crowd control and operational tactics to include impartial enforcement, human-rights standards, rules of engagement and the handling of politically sensitive situations.
Joint command and inter-agency coordination
This is another pillar with a direct lesson from 2023.
Election security involves the Police, DSS, Civil Defence, military, INEC and other institutions, making coordination indispensable. Yet the IRI/NDI observers found that the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) did not function as intended during the 2023 elections. They cited uncertainty over its composition and leadership, bureaucratic disputes and inadequate coordination as factors that limited its effectiveness.
That experience gives particular significance to Disu’s emphasis on joint command. The challenge is no longer simply establishing an inter-agency structure; it is ensuring that the structure has clear leadership, defined responsibilities, functioning communication channels and the authority to coordinate a rapid response when an incident occurs.
Communication and technology
Technology has become increasingly central to Nigeria’s elections, but recent experience shows both its possibilities and limitations.
During the 2023 general elections, the introduction of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV) was regarded by observers as an important step towards electoral transparency. However, the EU Election Observation Mission reported that the uploading of results did not work as expected and that presidential result forms began appearing on IReV much later than expected on election day.
The experience was more encouraging during the 2024 Edo governorship election. CDD-EAC observers reported that BVAS was used efficiently in virtually all polling units they observed, while 83.96 per cent of results had been uploaded to IReV by 6pm on election day and 98.07 per cent by 2am the following day.
For the Police, the planned public election complaints line announced by Disu could similarly improve incident reporting—but only if complaints are properly received, verified and acted upon. The experience of 2023 is instructive: IRI/NDI observers found that numerous election-security hotlines were published but many were not properly manned on election day.
The lesson is straightforward: technology can improve election security only when it is backed by functioning personnel and response systems.
Community partnership
Disu’s fifth pillar recognises that formal security structures cannot see everything happening within a community. Traditional rulers, religious leaders, civil society organisations and local groups can provide early information about emerging tensions and help de-escalate conflicts.
The 2023 elections demonstrated why such local engagement matters. The EU Election Observation Mission reported the deployment of vigilantes by some state-level actors and said observers encountered poorly trained and reportedly partisan communal vigilantes being used in some areas.
That experience highlights both the value and the risk of community-based security. Local actors can provide useful intelligence, but their involvement must be carefully structured so that community partnerships do not become avenues for political actors to influence security operations.
Absolute neutrality
The sixth pillar is perhaps the most consequential because the credibility of every other security measure ultimately depends on public confidence that the Police will act impartially.
The 2023 governorship and state assembly elections provide a particularly stark example. The IRI/NDI observation mission recorded at least 66 violent incidents across 21 states during the March 18 elections, while reporting more than a dozen incidents of violent voter suppression in Lagos, many targeting Igbo neighbourhoods. It also reported concerns in some states about the arrest or threat of arrest of opposition politicians.
The EU Election Observation Mission similarly reported concerns about the use of communal vigilantes, inadequate security responses and a lack of effective follow-through on some arrests and investigations.
Against that background, Disu’s warning that officers who take sides, intimidate voters, collude with political actors or abuse their powers will face accountability is significant. But neutrality cannot be established by a declaration alone. It has to be visible in deployment decisions, treatment of competing parties and candidates, response to electoral offences and disciplinary action against erring officers.
From framework to implementation
The six pillars therefore address several weaknesses that have emerged from Nigeria’s recent electoral experience. Intelligence seeks to move security operations towards prevention; training aims to improve preparedness; inter-agency coordination addresses institutional fragmentation; technology offers faster reporting and communication; community partnerships can deepen local intelligence; while neutrality speaks directly to public confidence.
The challenge is implementation. Resource constraints, manpower shortages, political pressure and uneven operational capacity across commands could affect the delivery of the framework. Recent elections also demonstrate that having structures in place is not enough. ICCES existed in 2023, for example, but observers found that it did not function as intended. Election hotlines existed, yet some were reportedly not properly manned. Technology was deployed, but its effectiveness varied.
This is where the 2027 test begins to take shape. The Police will need to demonstrate not merely that it has a roadmap, but that the roadmap has produced measurable changes before Nigerians begin voting.
Ultimately, the success of Disu’s framework will be judged on the ground: whether threats are identified before they escalate, whether security agencies respond collectively, whether technology produces functioning channels for citizens, and whether officers enforce the law without regard to political affiliation.
The six pillars provide the architecture. The harder question—and the one Nigerians will ultimately answer—is whether the architecture works when the political temperature rises.
