Barely hours after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) commenced the online pre-registration for nationwide continuous voter registration (CVR), the portal has now crashed.
Recall that in preparation for the 2027 Nigerian General Elections, online pre-registration for voter registration was scheduled to begin today on the INEC registration portal. However, the portal has now crashed a few hours after the commencement of the process.
The INEC online pre-registration for nationwide voter registration, which commenced today, is open to new voters aged 18 and above, those who wish to collect or transfer their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), and individuals who need to replace lost or damaged PVCs.
A visit to the registration portal around 2:30 pm on Monday, August 18, shows a 502 Server Error, accompanied by the description:
“Error: Server Error. The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request. Please try again in 30 seconds.”
In explanation, a 502 Bad Gateway error indicates a problem with communication between servers. It means a server acting as a gateway or proxy received an invalid response from another upstream server. This often signifies a server-side issue where one server couldn’t properly process a request due to a failure in communication with another server involved in fulfilling the request.
INEC’s portal crash is the latest in a recent trend of underperforming government agencies’ websites. It has again mirrored the bad conditions, website management capacity and unimpressive level of preparation by these government agencies.
The incident has now sparked outrage and reactions from Nigerians on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
An X user, @OladejiEmm12648, demands an alternative to the unreliable registration portal. “Server Error, why can’t you allow us to register in our polling unit? Must we do it online considering the fact that some people are not on the internet?”
Another, @pere_lucky, expressed his frustration in navigating the portal. “Website not working well. Tried to create login details, and it didn’t work.”
@ObaEnergy demands accountability, questioning persistent government failure in website management. “Why can’t Nigeria do anything right? You guys have neigh time to make this right @inecnigeria.”
Another user, @JamzyjHNIC, also demanded an urgent intervention from INEC. “Your site is trash and unserious. Fix it up or better still, give me the job to do so.”
While the INEC online pre-registration portal is currently down, information supplied by the commission shows the portal was up till noon. On its X page, the commission said that the portal had seen 26,255 registrations as of 12.35 pm.
Not a good start for 2027 election preparations
As Nigerians look forward to the 2027 General Elections, hands are expected to be on deck for necessary preparations across the board. As the primary function of the INEC towards an election is the nationwide continuous voter registration, commencing this on a good note is the impression needed to gain public trust.
However, the portal’s inefficiency paints a not-too-pleasant image for INEC. It again raises concerns over its preparations for the forthcoming elections. For a commission tasked with such a heavy and delicate duty, much is expected.
The 2023 election was marred by technical glitches, and the commission is expected to make improvements in 2027. Recall that issues surrounding the failure of the result viewing portal (IREV) during the presidential poll caused a major outage and raised doubts over the veracity of the election results.
INEC explained in its report, made available last year, that there was a problem with uploading the 2023 presidential election results to the system. This was accompanied by HTTP errors and configuration problems that delayed uploading the result for 2 weeks after the election was held.
While many Nigerians thought the introduction of technologies such as IREV and the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System BVAS would signal the end of physical collation and transmission, both failed woefully, which in turn opened the result up for manipulation.
Also Read: INEC creates AI division to strengthen electoral credibility in Nigeria.
Portal crash: what next?
The sudden crash of INEC’s voter pre-registration portal, just hours after its launch, represents the susceptibility of the portal and other government websites to technical glitches and downtime due to traffic.
Nigerians are advised to stay calm, remain patient and keep checking the portal periodically. They can also reach INEC via its call centre on 0700-CALL-INEC (0700-2255-4632) or through its short code 4632.
To avoid falling victim to fake portals, Nigerians should look out for INEC’s official communication channels (X, website, press statements) for verified updates and information.
Provided the online registration portal fails to get restored in time, Nigerians can look out for the in-person registration, which is set to commence on August 25, 2025, across all 37 INEC state offices and the 774 local government areas.
The portal crash is another call to INEC and the Nigerian government to invest in digital infrastructures. Efforts should be directed to deploying a more robust server infrastructure with redundancy to handle traffic surges.
In addition, future website rollouts should be preceded by smaller, regional test runs to identify weaknesses before going nationwide.