President Bola Tinubu has signed into law the Electoral Act Amendment) 2026, saying in Nigeria, electronic transmission of election results is merely supportive and not a replacement for manual transmission.
Signing of the amended Act came days after the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, released the time-table for the 2027 general elections.
The signing ceremony took place at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, around 5:00pm, with principal officers of the National Assembly in attendance.
Recall that the National Assembly had on Tuesday, passed the Electoral Act 2026 (Amendment) Bill into law.
The amendment came amid intense public debate over electronic transmission of election results in real-time.
Last week, protests rocked the National Assembly complex as civil society organisations and some opposition figures mounted sustained pressure on the National Assembly to mandate live transmission of results from polling units directly to INEC’s central server.
They argued that it will reduce result manipulation and enhance credibility of the electoral process.
However, the All Progressives Congress and some stakeholders expressed concerns over the technical feasibility of real-time transmission in areas with poor telecommunications infrastructure, making a case for a phased or hybrid approach that allows manual collation where electronic systems fail.
During the 2023 elections, the failure of INEC’s Results Viewing Portal on election day triggered widespread allegations of rigging.
The 2027 general elections are scheduled to hold on February 20 for Presidential and National Assembly elections and March 6 for Governorship & State Houses of Assembly Elections.
Speaking shortly after assenting to the bill, President Tinubu commended the National Assembly for what he described as a rigorous and patriotic process, stressing that the objective of the reforms was to safeguard democratic stability and prevent voter disenfranchisement.
“I followed keenly what you were doing. The essence of democracy is to have very solid brainstorming discussions committed to national development and nation-building and the stability of the nation.
“What is crucial is that you manage the process to the extent that there will be no confusion and no disenfranchisement of Nigerians, and we are all going to see democracy flourish,’’ Tinubu said.
The President emphasised that while technology remains important, elections ultimately depend on human management and public trust.
According to him, the manual voting and counting process remains central to Nigeria’s electoral system, with electronic transmission serving as a support mechanism, rather than a replacement.
He stated: “No matter how good a system is, it is managed by people, promoted by people and finalised by people. You are not going to be talking to a computer; you are going to be talking to human beings who announce the results.
“Essentially, what we are looking at is the transmission of manual results, and we must avoid glitches. Nigeria will flourish and continue to nurture this democracy for prosperity and stability.”
Amended Act will ensure every vote counts — Akpabio
Also speaking after the signing ceremony, Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, declared that the Electoral Act 2026 (Amendment) will ensure that every Nigerian vote counted.
Akpabio said the new piece of legislation eliminated the perennial problem of result manipulation between polling units and collation centres, adding it addressed the core concerns raised by Nigerians over integrity of the electoral process and introduced provisions that will make future elections more transparent and secure.
“At the end, Nigerians will benefit a lot from future elections. Every vote will now count,” the Senate President said.
He noted that the amendment represented the first time since independence in 1960 that Nigeria’s electoral laws will recognise electronic transmission of results.
Akpabio explained that the amended Act mandates the electronic transmission of polling unit results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal, a key demand by civil society organisations, opposition parties, and election observers following widespread allegations of result manipulation during the 2023 general elections.
However, he said the law also took into account areas with poor telecommunications infrastructure, ensuring that the primary source of results remained the EC8A forms signed by presiding officers, party agents, and security personnel at polling units.
“We took cognisance of areas where there may not be any network, where there may not be communication capacities and availability.
“We said, since the polling unit result comes in form EC8A, which is signed by the presiding officer, signed by the agents, and signed in the presence of security agents, copies are given to all.
“Then we can use that as the primary source of collation at that unit. And then, of course, we transmit it. Even if there is no network at that time, once we step out of there, maybe towards the ward centre or the local government centre, it will drop into the iREV and people will still be able to view.”
Akpabio said the implication was that Nigerians will now be able to compare results uploaded to the portal with what was eventually collated at ward, local government, and state levels, making it impossible for results to be tampered with after leaving polling units.
“The implication of that is that if what is eventually collated at the next centre is different from what is in the iREV, Nigerians will be able to compare whether the election result had been tampered with.
“For us, that had always been the problem in the country, that once election results leave a polling unit, they will be tampered with or mutilated. That has been eliminated today,” he said.
The Senate President dismissed suggestions that the National Assembly had bowed to political pressure, insisting that the final provisions of the amendment were the product of thorough consultations and deliberations at plenary of both chambers.
“We are satisfied that we have met the aspiration of Nigerians, not those who are politically motivated,” he said, adding that the Senate had even sacrificed its holiday break to conclude work on the amendment.
He said the amendment also addressed scenarios where election winners were disqualified by courts, noting that instead of declaring the runner-up as the winner, the law now mandated fresh elections to ensure that Nigerians truly elect their leaders.
“We don’t want a situation where, in an election, you have five people contesting, one person out of 300,000 votes, scores 290,000 votes , and then, for one reason or the other, he’s disqualified by the court, and then the person who scored 1,000, who is not popularly elected, will now be declared winner.
“All those things are eliminated. We have now recommended that, where such a case happens, they should call for another election,” he said.
On his part, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen, who also addressed journalists, drew attention to the reduction of the election notice period from 360 days to 300 days.
“This will inadvertently translate to holding the presidential and National Assembly elections in January 2027, and that will technically avoid conducting elections during the month of Ramadan of 2027.
“I think this is another piece of ingenuity that the National Assembly has introduced to avoid voter apathy in the next general election,” the speaker said.
Vanguard
