By Olumide Babalola, PhD
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Earlier today, 15 April 2026, I came across a post on social media announcing the establishment of a Joint Working Group between the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). This development is both timely and significant, particularly considering the increasing digitisation of Nigeria’s electoral process and the growing reliance on electronic transmission of results, recently reinforced through the controversial amendment to the Electoral Act.
Interestingly, just yesterday, while facilitating a training session for the Kwara State Judiciary on “Artificial Intelligence in Judicial Proceedings,” I particularly informed the honourable Judges of the emerging privacy and data protection implications that will inevitably accompany the e-transmission of votes in the 2027 general elections. In that context, the announcement of this Joint Working Group feels not only relevant but necessary.
However, while the terms of reference of this committee have not yet been made public, I would respectfully offer some opinionated reflections on what should constitute the core deliverables of this ‘first-of-its-kind’ institutional collaboration in Nigeria’s electoral governance architecture.
Voter registers, biometric verification tools, result transmission platforms, political communication databases, and vendor-managed election infrastructure all sit on top of vast personal data ecosystems. Hence, if these systems are weakly governed, trust in elections erodes quickly, often faster than institutions can repair it. But the existence of a committee is not the same as impact. Flowing from the above, the question staring us in the face is: what tangible, enforceable outcomes should this group produce before and towards 2027 elections?
The Need to Move Away from the Usual Cosmetic Coordination to a Binding Governance Framework
Too many inter-agency committees in Nigeria fail because they become bureaucratic coordination forums rather than enforcement engines, hence, this Working Group must avoid this familiarly sad fate. Its success should be measured by a visible shift from fragmented data handling to enforceable national electoral data governance.
I am of the respectful opinion that, if such a by-product framework is not introduced to bind the umpire, political actors, vendors, systems, and internal processes to enforce privacy and security obligations, it will not matter how many ‘propagandist collaborations’ are forged.
A Clear Electoral Data Governance Framework (Not Another Report)
From the data protection perspective, the first real deliverable should not be figurative, but it should be structural. The Working Group must produce a binding Electoral Data Governance Framework that clearly defines who owns voter data at every material time, what personal data INEC can collect and what it cannot (of course subject to the electoral Act), how long voter data can be retained, if, when and how data must be deleted or anonymised and how third-party contractors (processors) are legally constrained.
Crucially, this must apply not just to INEC, but to the entire ecosystem of vendors, ICT contractors, and subcontractors. Without this, any collaborations between NDPC and INEC will remain merely aspirational rather than operational.
Full Visibility into Electoral Data Flows
There is no gainsaying that one of the most under-discussed risks in modern elections is not hacking, but opacity. The Working Group should produce a complete mapping of where voter data originates, how it moves across systems (from registration to verification to accreditation and the results transmission), which entities touch it at each stage, where copies are stored and where personal data is exported or mirrored. It must be noted that all these should not be regarded as a technical luxury, but they have now been transmuted into a democratic necessity. This is particularly so because you cannot protect what you do not fully map.
Vendor Accountability: Ending the “Invisible Middle Layer”
Modern elections rely heavily on private contractors, which are often global technology firms or local system integrators. A critical deliverable of the Working Group must be a strict compliance regime for election vendors, including the NDPC Trust mark before deployment (even though this ‘tick box activity’ does not guarantee compliance. Data Processing and Data Sharing Agreements must be executed while cybersecurity and breach liability standards are clearly set. Processors must be duly restricted on secondary use of voter data etc. Without all these, electoral data protection becomes meaningless, because the most sensitive systems often sit outside direct government control. The recent data breach suffered by Remita provides a relatable recent example.
Mandatory Data Protection Impact Assessments
If Section 28 of the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023 is taken seriously, then it follows that, well ahead of the 2027 elections, every critical electoral system ought to be subjected to a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA). In practical terms, this means that the systems (BVAs, iRev etc) underpinning voter registration, accreditation, biometric verification, and electronic transmission of results should not go live or remain in operation without first being rigorously assessed for their potential impact on the privacy and data protection rights of Nigerians.
However, this should not be treated as a paperwork exercise or another regulatory tick box ritual. A credible DPIA should actively test whether voter data could be profiled or misused, and/or whether biometric systems can be spoofed or duplicated, and/or whether political actors could exploit system weaknesses and ultimately, whether data could leak across election cycles. The outcome should not just be documentation but should necessitate system redesign where necessary to cater to these needs
Real Incident Response Capability (Not Theoretical Protocols)
Judging from the past unresolved allegations of electoral fraud, Nigerian voters do not need another “incident response framework” document that sits on a shelf. The Working Group should establish an effective joint NDPC–INEC rapid response team, while mandatory breach reporting timelines must be strictly enforced.
This is essential because, in electoral systems, the real test is not whether failures happen but how fast trust can be restored when they do.
The Hard Part: Enforcement, Not Advice
It is my respectful opinion that, the most important expectation of this Working Group is also the most uncomfortable. It must have enforcement consequences, meaning non-compliant vendors can be removed, systems can be suspended or redesigned, while data breaches carry real penalties. Where recommendations are made, they must be obligatory, not advisory Without enforcement authority, the Working Group risks becoming another consultative body with no practical impact.
Conclusion
I believe that the Joint Working Group should not just be about the next election but it ought to kickstart honest conversations about whether the Nigerian government can build a modern democratic infrastructure where personal data, especially within the context of elections, is treated as a protected public asset rather than an invisible extractive resource.
The real benchmark of success will not be how many meetings are held or reports (if any) are published but about whether, in 2027, the Nigerian electorate can reasonably trust that their personal data is not being misused, the electoral system is not opaque and digital tools employed during and after the electioneering process are strengthening but not weakening democracy. If the Working Group delivers that, then it would have done more than prepare for an election but gone further to have strengthened the foundations of Nigeria’s electoral legitimacy itself. However, at this stage, fingers remain crossed as we watch with bated breath.
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