With just seven months to Nigeria’s 2027 general elections, INEC, security agencies and civil society are sounding the alarm over a worsening insecurity crisis — 5,272 Nigerians killed between January and May 2026 alone — that opposition parties insist must not be used as an excuse to postpone the polls, according to Vanguard.
The countdown to Nigeria’s 2027 general elections has begun — and so has the body count. Just seven months out, insecurity is casting a long shadow over what should be a landmark vote, 33 years after the historic June 12, 1993 election.
Between January and May 2026, no fewer than 5,272 Nigerians were killed in violence-related incidents, according to media reports. That’s on top of the grim figures from the 15th Report on Violence in Nigeria by Nigeria Watch, which logged 222,137 deaths from 46,182 violent incidents nationwide between 2006 and 2025.
Terrorism, banditry and kidnapping are no longer confined to the North — they’re now creeping into the South-West too.
INEC Chairman, Professor Joash Amupitan, didn’t mince words, describing security and elections as “two sides of the same coin of national stability.” He’s already met with IGP Olatunji Disu to push for proactive risk assessments ahead of the January 16 and February 6, 2027 polls.
But opposition parties — PDP, ADC and NDC — are wary, warning that any talk of postponement would mean “surrendering the nation’s democracy to terror groups.”
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