Your vote,
start to finish.
Everything a Nigerian voter needs for Saturday, 16 January 2027 — how to register, how accreditation works, what happens to your ballot after you drop it, and what the law forbids at the polling unit.
Presidential election · 16 January 2027
Six reasons the queue is worth standing in.
Not campaign lines — arithmetic. Nigeria’s presidential result is assembled from the smallest possible pieces, and each piece is a room full of people who either turned up or did not.
1 unit
Elections are decided where you stand
A presidential result is nothing more than 176,595 polling-unit results added together. There is no national vote — only your unit's vote, repeated across the country.
8,809
Wards, not slogans, decide turnout
Turnout is won ward by ward. A few hundred people who stay home in one registration area can change what the whole local government returns.
4 years
You are choosing the next four years
The minimum wage, the student loan scheme, the roads under construction, the tax regime — every one of these is a decision made by people who hold office because someone voted.
PVC
A card that is not used is a voice not counted
Collecting a Permanent Voter Card and leaving it in a drawer has exactly the same effect on the result as never registering at all.
18+
The youngest electorate in our history
Nigeria's register is dominated by young voters. If that bloc votes at the rate it registers, it decides the election outright.
Public
Your presence is part of the safeguard
Results are counted and posted at the polling unit in front of whoever stays. Voters who remain for the count are part of how the count stays honest.
Five dates that decide whether you get to vote.
Two of these are statutory deadlines rather than announcements — miss them and no amount of enthusiasm on election morning helps.
18 September 2026Derived from the statutory window
Candidate lists due
Parties must submit their candidate lists 120 days before election day under the Electoral Act 2026 — moved forward from the 180 days required by the 2022 Act.
18 October 2026Derived from the statutory window
Voter registration closes
Continuous Voter Registration closes 90 days before the poll. This is the deadline for first-time registration, polling-unit transfers, corrections and replacements.
Before 16 January 2027
Collect your PVC
Registering is not the same as being able to vote. Collect the physical card from the INEC office announced for your local government.
Saturday, 16 January 2027
Presidential & National Assembly elections
Polls open at 8:30am. President and Vice President, 109 Senate seats and 360 House of Representatives seats are decided on the same day.
Saturday, 6 February 2027
Governorship & state assembly elections
The second polling day, three weeks later, for state governors and state houses of assembly.
Dates marked as derived are calculated from the Electoral Act 2026 windows against the 16 January 2027 poll. INEC’s published timetable is the binding version — always check it.
What is on the ballot in 2027
| President & Vice President | 1 ticket | 16 January 2027 |
| Senate | 109 seats | 16 January 2027 |
| House of Representatives | 360 seats | 16 January 2027 |
| State governors | Contested states | 6 February 2027 |
| State houses of assembly | All 36 states | 6 February 2027 |
Five conditions. All five must be true.
- You are a Nigerian citizen.
- You are 18 years of age or older.
- You are registered in INEC's National Register of Voters.
- You have collected your Permanent Voter Card (PVC).
- You present yourself at the polling unit where you are registered — and no other.
Six steps, from registration to the count.
Register — or update your details
Registration happens through INEC's Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise, online and at designated centres.
- You must be a Nigerian citizen aged 18 or above.
- If you have moved house, changed name, or lost your card, the CVR is also where you transfer, correct or replace it — not on election day.
- Registration produces a Voter Identification Number (VIN) that ties you to one polling unit.
Collect your PVC
Registering is not voting. The Permanent Voter Card must be physically collected from the INEC office announced for your local government.
- Collect it yourself — PVCs are issued to the registrant, not to a proxy.
- Check that the name, photograph and polling unit printed on the card are correct as soon as you receive it.
- Keep it somewhere you will find it in January. Replacement takes time you may not have.
Confirm your polling unit
Know exactly where you vote before election morning — the YFT app searches all 176,595 units by state, local government and ward.
- Your PVC states your polling unit; confirm it still matches where you live.
- If you have relocated, apply for a transfer during the CVR window — you cannot vote at a unit you are not registered in.
- Plan how you will get there. Movement restrictions usually apply on election day.
Arrive early and get accredited
Polling units open at 8:30am on Saturday, 16 January 2027. Accreditation and voting run together in one continuous process.
- Join the queue with your PVC in hand.
- The presiding officer verifies you on the BVAS — the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System — by reading your card and matching your fingerprint or face.
- Your details are checked against the register for that unit, and your name is ticked.
- Anyone in the queue by the official closing time is entitled to vote, even if the queue runs past it.
Cast your ballot
You are issued a ballot paper, stamped and signed, and directed to the voting cubicle.
- Thumbprint once, inside the box of your chosen candidate — a mark that spills across two boxes voids the ballot.
- Fold the paper as the presiding officer directs, so your choice is hidden.
- Drop it in the ballot box yourself, in full view of the unit.
- Do not photograph your ballot. Phones are not permitted in the voting cubicle.
Stay for the count
Counting happens at the polling unit, in the open, immediately after the close of poll.
- Ballots are sorted and counted aloud in front of voters and party agents.
- The result is entered on Form EC8A, signed by the presiding officer and the agents present, and pasted at the unit for anyone to see.
- The BVAS is used to upload that result to INEC's Result Viewing Portal (IReV).
- You are entitled to watch all of this. Watching it is part of what keeps it clean.
What to take, and what to leave at home.
Most wasted journeys on election day come down to one of these six lines. Read them the night before.
Find your polling unitYour Permanent Voter Card
The original card. No PVC, no vote — there is no exception.
Arrive by 8:30am
Polls open at 8:30am; queues build fast in dense units.
Know your unit code
Confirm state, LGA, ward and unit in the app the night before.
Patience and water
Accreditation and voting are one continuous process; queues can be long.
Leave the phone in your pocket
Phones are not allowed in the voting cubicle.
No party colours at the unit
Campaigning within the polling unit is prohibited.
Four acronyms worth actually understanding.
You will hear all four repeated on election day. Knowing what each one does is the difference between trusting the process and merely hoping.
BVAS
Bimodal Voter Accreditation System
The device the presiding officer uses to read your PVC and verify you biometrically — by fingerprint or facial capture — before you are allowed to vote. It replaced the older card reader, and it is what makes double voting and impersonation difficult. It also uploads the polling-unit result to IReV.
IReV
INEC Result Viewing Portal
A public portal where the scanned Form EC8A from each polling unit is published. Anyone with an internet connection can look at the original result sheet from any unit in the country and compare it to what was collated.
PVC
Permanent Voter Card
Your credential to vote, issued once you register and tied to a single polling unit. It carries your photograph, your Voter Identification Number and the unit you are assigned to.
CVR
Continuous Voter Registration
The rolling exercise through which INEC registers new voters and processes transfers, replacements and corrections between elections. It closes well before an election — a deadline that catches out thousands of would-be voters every cycle.
How your ballot becomes a national result.
Five forms, five levels. Every one of them is signed by party agents who were in the room — which is why the count is public and why staying to watch it matters.
Polling unit
The result is counted publicly at your unit, recorded on Form EC8A, signed by agents, pasted at the unit and uploaded to IReV from the BVAS.
Registration area (ward)
Unit results across the ward are collated at the ward collation centre onto Form EC8B, in the presence of party agents.
Local government
Ward results across the LGA are collated onto Form EC8C at the local government collation centre.
State
LGA results across the state are collated onto Form EC8D, and the state result is declared by the state collation officer.
National
State results are collated nationally onto Form EC8E, and the presidential result is declared by the Chief Returning Officer — the INEC Chairman.
The scanned Form EC8A from your own polling unit is uploaded to INEC’s public Result Viewing Portal (IReV). Anyone can compare the original sheet against what was collated above it — that comparison is the single most useful thing an ordinary citizen can do after voting.
Six things that will end your election day in custody.
These are offences under Nigeria’s electoral law, and they carry penalties set by the Electoral Act. Several of them apply to the voter as much as to the politician.
Vote buying and selling
Offering, giving, receiving or soliciting money or any other inducement in exchange for a vote. It is an offence for the person offering and the person accepting.
Snatching or destroying materials
Seizing, damaging or destroying ballot boxes, ballot papers or any election material — including interfering with the BVAS.
Impersonation and multiple voting
Voting in another person's name, voting more than once, or attempting to be accredited on a PVC that is not yours.
Photographing your marked ballot
Recording your marked ballot, which is how vote buying is verified and paid for. Phones are prohibited in the voting cubicle for this reason.
Campaigning at the polling unit
Canvassing for votes, wearing party materials, or displaying party symbols inside or immediately around a polling unit on election day.
Disorderly conduct and intimidation
Threatening voters or officials, obstructing the process, or refusing to leave when directed by the presiding officer.
The Electoral Act 2026, in six changes.
Signed on 18 February 2026, replacing the 2022 law. If you voted in 2023, these are the rules that are different this time.
Electronic transmission is now mandatory
The Act gives statutory recognition to INEC's Result Viewing Portal and requires polling-unit result forms to be transmitted electronically to it — an obligation that did not exist under the 2022 Act.
Direct primaries or consensus only
Candidates must be nominated by direct primaries or by consensus, and political appointees are explicitly barred from serving as voting delegates or as aspirants in party primaries.
Earlier candidate lists
The deadline for submitting candidate lists moved from 180 days to 120 days before election day.
Tighter campaign finance
Contribution limits, candidate spending caps, a ban on political parties holding foreign funds, and mandatory expenditure reporting — rules every campaign council now operates within.
INEC funded earlier
Election funds due to the commission must be released no later than six months before the general election.
Registration closes 90 days out
Voter registration now closes 90 days before election day, making the CVR deadline the single most important date in the voter's calendar.
The glossary.
- INEC
- Independent National Electoral Commission — the body constitutionally responsible for conducting federal and state elections in Nigeria.
- Polling unit (PU)
- The smallest electoral unit, where voters are accredited and votes are cast and counted. Nigeria has 176,595 of them.
- Registration area (RA) / ward
- A grouping of polling units, and the level at which unit results are first collated. Nigeria has 8,809.
- Local government area (LGA)
- The 774 administrative units above the ward, each with its own collation centre.
- Accreditation
- Verifying that a voter is registered at that unit, via the BVAS, before a ballot is issued.
- Collation
- Adding polling-unit results upward, level by level, on the EC8 series of forms until a national result is declared.
- Party agent
- A representative appointed by a political party to observe accreditation, voting, counting and collation, and to sign the result forms.
- Returning officer
- The official who declares the result at a given level. For the presidential election, the INEC Chairman is the Chief Returning Officer.
- VIN
- Voter Identification Number — the number on your PVC that links you to one polling unit in the register.
- Spoilt / rejected ballot
- A ballot that cannot be counted because the mark is unclear, falls across two boxes, or the paper carries a mark that identifies the voter.
Straight answers.
Can I vote without my PVC?
No. The Permanent Voter Card is the credential the BVAS reads to accredit you. A photocopy, a photograph of the card, or another form of ID will not do.
I have moved to another state. Where do I vote?
At the unit you are registered in — unless you apply for a transfer during the Continuous Voter Registration window. Transfers cannot be done on election day.
What if my name is not on the register at my unit?
Ask the presiding officer to check the register for that unit carefully. If your name genuinely is not there, you cannot vote at that unit; report it to INEC through their published complaints channel.
What time do polls open and close?
Polling units open at 8:30am. Anyone already in the queue when the poll closes is entitled to vote — do not leave the queue.
Can I take a photograph of my ballot?
No. Phones are not permitted in the voting cubicle, and photographing a marked ballot is an offence, because it is the mechanism through which vote buying is verified.
Who can watch the count?
Voters, accredited party agents, observers and journalists. The count happens in the open at the unit, and the signed Form EC8A is pasted there afterwards.
How do I check the result from my own unit?
The result sheet from your unit is uploaded to INEC's IReV portal from the BVAS. You can view the scanned original and compare it with what was collated.
Does the YFT app replace INEC?
No, and it does not claim to. The app helps you find your unit, understand the process and register as a campaign member. Registration to vote, your PVC and the conduct of the election are INEC's alone.
Know where you vote. Then bring three people with you.
Register as a YFT member, confirm your polling unit, and carry this guide in your pocket on 16 January.