5,272 killed in five months: Insecurity threatens Nigeria's 2027 elections

Between January and May 2026, at least 5,272 Nigerians were killed in violence-related incidents across the country. That's an average of 35 deaths every day — and it's raising serious questions about whether the 2027 general elections can hold safely.

The figure comes from media reports cited by Nigeria Watch, a violence monitoring project. Its 15th report, compiled by Dr Vitus Nwankwo Ukoji and Dr Abiola Victoria Ayodokun, also reveals that 222,137 Nigerians died in 46,182 violent incidents between 2006 and 2025 — 20 years of near-constant bloodshed.

Now, with seven months to the elections scheduled for January 16 and February 6, 2027, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), senior lawyers, and rights activists are all sounding the alarm.

INEC Chairman Professor Joash Amupitan has spoken out twice in recent days. During a visit to Inspector-General of Police Olatunji Disu, he formally requested police support for the polls. He warned that electoral malpractices, vote-trading, and threats of violence could undermine public confidence and risk national security.

"The scale of insecurity across various parts of the country presents a threat to the conduct of free and fair elections," Amupitan said. He called for proactive security measures — comprehensive risk assessments to identify flashpoints before trouble erupts.

Amupitan described the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) as the "heartbeat" of operational safety during elections. But he stressed that success depends on ICCES shifting from reactive policing to proactive intelligence coordination.

IGP Disu assured the commission that the police are ready. He promised no preferential treatment for any party and said the force had already begun strategic threat assessments and intelligence mapping nationwide. Priority concerns include political violence, illegal arms, voter intimidation, cyber manipulation, misinformation, and attacks on electoral infrastructure.

But the opposition is wary. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), African Democratic Congress (ADC), and Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) last week warned against postponing the elections. They argued that delaying the polls would amount to surrendering democracy to terror groups.

Terrorist attacks, banditry, and kidnappings have spread beyond the North-East, North-West, and North-Central zones. The South-West is now seeing growing insecurity too.

Human rights lawyer Femi Falana has also weighed in. He warned the federal government and governors that negotiating with terrorists attracts a 20-year jail term under Nigerian law.

The consensus from INEC, the police, human rights groups, and civil society is clear: Nigeria can't treat security and elections as separate issues. As Amupitan put it, they're "two sides of the same coin of national stability."