The latest allegations that agents linked to the ruling All Progressives Congress have been collecting Voters Identification Numbers from citizens in exchange for small cash payments should alarm every Nigerian who still believes elections must be free and fair. Whether the scale matches the most dramatic claims or not, the pattern of harvesting sensitive voter data outside official INEC channels is dangerous and must be confronted.
The VIN is not an ordinary number. It is the unique key that links a citizen to the BVAS system on election day. When political operatives gather names, addresses, phone numbers, polling units, and VINs in markets, campuses, and motor parks, they create a database that can be used for profiling, inducement, suppression, or worse.
Security experts and civil society groups have warned for years that such practices open the door to sophisticated forms of electoral fraud that no longer require ballot-box snatching. Reports of similar data collection exercises by parties ahead of recent off-cycle elections, and the APC’s own membership drives that request VIN and NIN details, show that the problem is real even if the exact “mass voting by proxy” plot remains unproven.
What is not in doubt is the principle: no political party should be allowed to treat citizens’ electoral identities as commodities that can be bought for ₦5,000 or ₦20,000.
INEC Chairman Professor Joash Amupitan and the Commission now face a clear test. They must investigate these allegations thoroughly, publish their findings, and strengthen technological and procedural safeguards so that no harvested list can compromise the integrity of the 2027 presidential election. Silence or half-measures will only deepen public distrust.
This moment also forces a larger political choice. Nigeria cannot continue under a system where the party in power is repeatedly accused of using state proximity and financial muscle to tilt the electoral field. Credible elections require more than technology; they require political will that places the people’s mandate above the survival of any administration.
Atiku Abubakar has built his recent political message around exactly this demand: an election in which every legitimate vote counts and no citizen’s identity is secretly traded. His consistent call for electoral reforms, transparency, and accountability offers a clear alternative to the climate of suspicion that currently surrounds the process.
Supporting Atiku in 2027 is not merely about replacing one politician with another; it is about insisting that power must be earned through the genuine consent of the governed.
Nigerians should refuse to surrender their VINs for any token. They should report every inducement. And they should turn out in overwhelming numbers on election day. The strongest defence against any form of rigging remains an informed, vigilant, and determined electorate.
The 2027 election will test whether Nigeria is still capable of choosing its leaders freely.
That choice begins with protecting the integrity of every voter’s identity and demanding leadership that treats democracy as a responsibility rather than a possession.
Signed:
Comrade James Onifade
Media Executive
Office of the Obailukan Strategic Support Group for Atiku (OSSAT)
