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.

This came on a day former Cross River State Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, Mr. Mike Igini, blamed the Judiciary for recurring challenges in the electoral system.

He also faulted the National Assembly’s decision to retain manual collation as a backup to electronic transmission of election results in the amended Electoral Act.

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.

Judiciary must stand tall to save democracy – Igini

Meanwhile, former Cross River State Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, and lawyer, Mr. Mike Igini, has blamed the Judiciary for recurring challenges in the electoral system, and faulted the National Assembly’s decision to retain manual collation as a backup to electronic transmission of election results in the amended Electoral Bill.
He described the Electoral Act Amendment Bill as a recipe for chaos.

The National Assembly approved electronic transmission of results but retained manual collation as a fallback. The Senate’s decision followed a tense plenary in which 15 lawmakers opposed the controversial Clause 60 of the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill 2026.

In the House of Representatives, lawmakers reversed their earlier position supporting mandatory real-time electronic transmission to align with the Senate.

Speaking on an interview with Arise Television, yesteday, Igini warned that the amendment could endanger presiding officers and undermine electoral credibility ahead of the 2027 general elections.

Message to Tinubu

He appealed directly to President Tinubu, recalling his history in the pro-democracy struggle.

“You were a senior man in the struggle when democracy was uncertain. What will be presented before you is a recipe for chaos. Be a man of history. What is put before you, please take it back. Don’t sign it.”

History of judicial resistance to electoral reforms

Recalling how the Judicary undemined democracy, Igini traced resistance to electronic reforms to successive electoral cycles.

The Barr Julius Abure-led faction of the Labour Party has accused the Abia State deputy Governor, Ikechukwu Emetu, and members of the Sen Nenadi Usman-led party executives of forcefully breaking into and occupying the party’s national secretariat on Tuesday.

National publicity secretary of the Abure-led Labour Party, Obiora Ifoh, who described the action as an invasion, recounted that security personnel at the Secretariat said that hoodlums invaded the Secretariat around 1am early on Tuesday to pull down party’s billboards and replaced them with that of the Nenadi Usman.

Earlier on the same Tuesday, Usman-led exco, accompanied by the Abia State deputy governor, resumed office at the party’s national secretariat which was hitherto occupied by the Abure-led exco.

Both camps have been locked in a tussle. However, the court and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) recently recognized the Usman-led Exco as the legitimate party leadership.

But Ifoh, in a statement, said the invasion aided by eight Truck-load of Policemen, refused entrance officers and staff of the party and ensured only names of members of Nenadi Interim leadership were given access into the Secretariat.

“The Abure led leadership is dumbfounded by the invasion of its secretariat by Nenadi camp aided by Police in the early hours of Tuesday. Accompanied by the Abia state deputy Governor, Ikechukwu Emetu, Senator Nenadi ordered his hoodlums to break into all the offices, and carted files and other materials alongside.

“When some of our senior officials came to office in the morning, we were prevented by the Police. We refused to confront them to avoid clashes and confrontations, choosing peaceful approach.

“It is on record that a Federal High Court in FCT gave a judgement which recognized Senator Usman as the Interim Chairman of the Labour Party. However, the party leadership has obtained a Stay of Execution and has since appealed the judgement. It is therefore inappropriate and needless for any group to resort to self-help by illegally breaking into the National Secretariat.

“We are by this statement calling on the Police, Department of State Security, office of the National Security Adviser and other relevant agencies to take note of the unlawful invasion of our party Secretariat. If this anomaly is not checked, it is a pointer that our democracy and its institutions are being threatened. We are also calling on our party faithfuls to remain vigilant as the party leadership is doing everything within the law to ensure that justice is not denied the party,” Ifoh said in the statement

The ruling All Progressives Congress APC has officially set its sights on the 2026 National Convention with the unveiling of a 73-member Central Coordination Committee, which features the controversial return of its former National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu.

The inclusion of Adamu is particularly striking given his 2023 announcement that he was quitting partisan politics due to a self-described “allergy” to political activities, followed by recent viral reports suggesting he had dumped the ruling party for the African Democratic Congress ADC.

APC leadership appears to have made a strategic move to suppress rumours of internal fracture by placing the former chairman at number 32 on the committee list.

The Nasarawa State chapter of the APC had last month issued a formal rebuttal against claims of Adamu’s defection, insisting that a widely circulated photo of him was not an ADC reception but rather his participation in the APC’s nationwide e-membership registration exercise.

The convention committee is chaired by the Governor of Imo State and Chairman of the Progressive Governors’ Forum, Hope Uzodimma, who will be supported by Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq as Vice Chairman and Yobe State Governor Mai Mala Buni as Secretary.

The list reinforces the influence of state governors over the party’s transitional machinery as they prepare for the national gathering scheduled for March 2026.

Beyond the Adamu saga, the committee reflects a “big tent” strategy by the National Working Committee NWC, incorporating a mix of traditional heavyweights and notable new entrants.

The list includes Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Speaker Tajudeen Abbas, alongside recent high-profile defectors such as Rivers State governor, Siminalayi Fubara; Kano State Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf and Plateau State Governor Caleb Mutfwang, all of whom officially joined the APC recently.