President signs reworked Bill
- INEC gets leeway to review election time-table
- ‘Elections can now hold in Jan
The Electoral Act 2026 came into operation yesterday.
From Our Abuja Correspondent
Ahmad Arab Azare
The reworked Electoral Act 2022 (Repeal and Re-enactment) Bill 2026 was signed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu 24 hours after passage.
The President described the law as a contribution to the pursuit of electoral sanity.
The short ceremony was witnessed by Senate President Godwill Akpabio, House of Representatives Speaker Abbas Tajudeen, Deputy Speaker Bejanmen Kalu, Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele, and Chief of Staff to the President Femi Gbajabiamila, among others.
The law replaces the Electoral Act 2022, which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) last week invoked to announce the timetable for next year’s general elections.
The announced dates were criticised by Muslims for not taking into account next year’s holy month of Ramadan.
INEC now has the leeway to adjust the timetable due to the 300-day notification window in the law, as opposed to the 360 days specified in the Electoral Act 2022.
Political leaders, who hailed the new law, said the coast is now clear for the 2027 elections.
On Tuesday, the passage of the harmonised version of the Bill by both chambers of the National Assembly was not smooth sailing
At the Senate, the Clause on Electronic Transmission of results was passed after a division of 55 to 15.
In the House of Representatives, following some rowdiness on the contentious clause, some members of the opposition party staged a walkout. The Bill was then passed.
Some of the highlights of the law include the legal recognition of BVAS and the INEC election viewing portal (IReV), which were previously mere guidelines of INEC in 2023.
Electronic Transmission of results from the polling unit to the IReV is backed by manually registered results on Form EC8A in case of network failure.
Other highlights are:
Streamlining of party primaries, which is now either through consensus or direct primary. The indirect or delegate system has been abolished.
Statutory codification of BVAS.
Strengthening of sanctions for collation infractions.
Reinforced controls against overvoting.
Digital verification of party membership registers.
The implication of this is that manual registration of members by the party is now eliminated.
Reflecting on the topsy-turvy passage of the Bill, the President said Nigeria’s electoral process remains “essentially manual,” adding that it must be protected from internet limitations, glitches and criminal interference such as hacking.
He said the most crucial issue in the electoral process was ensuring that elections were “devoid of confusion,” with Nigerians protected from disenfranchisement.
President Tinubu added: “It’s not as important as the history aspect of this. What is crucial is the fact that you managed the process to the extent that there will be no confusion, no disenfranchisement of Nigerians, and that we are all going to see democracy flourish.”
The President stressed that, regardless of technological improvements, elections are driven by human beings, and results are ultimately announced by officials, not machines.
He said: “No matter how good a system is, it’s managed by the people. In fact, for final results, you are not going to be talking to the computer; you are going to be talking to human beings, who’ll announce the results.”
The President anchored his position on Nigeria’s infrastructure realities, raising questions about broad capacity and the country’s readiness for real-time electronic transmission of results.
He queried: “When you look at the crux of various arguments, maybe Nigeria should question our broadband capability. How technically are we today? How technically will we be tomorrow?”
President Tinubu said voting in Nigeria is still done manually, adding: “Voters appear physically at polling units, receive ballot papers, thumbprint their preferred candidates, and ballots are sorted and counted by hand.”He added: “As long as you appear personally as a manual voter in any polling booth, ballot papers are sorted and counted manually, it is still essentially manual.”