Electoral Law Signed , Transparency Questions Linger

dailytrust.com · Feb 19, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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President Bola Ahmed Tinubu yesterday signed the amended Electoral Bill 2026 amidst controversy, protest and rejection from civil society organisations, prominent Nigerians and opposition parties over real-time electronic transmission of results.Both chambers of the National Assembly had on Tuesday passed the harmonised version of the bill after heated sessions. Opposition lawmakers had insisted on passage of mandatory real-time electronic transmission of results from polling units to IRev portal.SPONSOR AD Tinubu assented to the bill at the Presidential Villa in the presence of the president of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio; the speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen and other government officials. The signing of the Electoral Bill elicited mixed reactions from CSOs, former officials INEC and other stakeholders yesterday.After signing the bill, the president charged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and all those saddled with implementation to guard against glitches. He commended the National Assembly and its leadership for managing the process, saying “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 we are all going to see democracy flourish.” The president urged Nigerians to have confidence in the system, saying, “It is time that we will have confidence in our system. No matter how good a system is, it’s managed by the people, promoted by the people, and result is finalised 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 announce the results.”In a veiled reaction to the controversy on real-time transmission, Tinubu said Nigerians should question the country’s broadband capability.“How technical are we today? How technically will we be tomorrow? To answer the call of either real time or no, and as long as you appear personally as a manual voter in any polling booth, ballot paper is given to you, manually, you decide in a corner and fingerprint, thumbprint, the person of your choice. You cast your vote without hindrance and any interference, ballots are subsequently sorted and counted manually. “It’s just the arithmetic accuracy that is entered into form EC8A. it’s still manually essentially, the transmission of that manual result is what we’re looking at, and we need to avoid glitches. We will continue to nurture this democracy for the fulfillment of our dream for prosperity and stability of our country,” he said.Ex-INEC officials flag risksA former Director of Legal and Public Affairs at INEC, Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, raised concerns over key provisions in the new Electoral Act, warning that they may weaken transparency and further erode public confidence in Nigeria’s electoral process.Speaking during an interview on Channels Television on Wednesday, Osaze-Uzzi said the debate around manual and electronic processes was being misunderstood.“The grey area means a lot of things are not clear,” he said. “Yes, we do have a hybrid. But we have gone way, way, way beyond the manual register several cycles ago,” he said.“The BVAS reads not just the card but also the biometrics of the voter. Those are not manual processes; those are electronic processes,” he said.He said the real issue was not technology, but transparency in the transmission and collation of results.“Transmission of results has been a bottleneck. It has been one of the lacuna that provides opportunity for interference,” he said.According to him, although results are displayed physically at polling units, discrepancies often occur before they reach collation centres.“Between the polling unit and the collation, often times, there have been little things happening. At each level of collation, you see changes. You see manipulation,” he said.Osaze-Uzzi dismissed concerns about network coverage as outdated.“That conversation has been done, dusted and dealt with,” he said, noting that previous engagements with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) showed over 93 per cent network coverage, with provisions for blind spots.On funding, Osaze-Uzzi said the amendment reduced the timeline for releasing INEC funds from one year to six months before elections.“You need money to plan. Unless you have those funds in your account, you cannot place orders or complete procurement processes.”Earlier, a former INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mike Igini urged Tinubu to withhold the assent to Electoral Act, saying it is “a recipe for chaos.”Speaking in an interview on Arise Television, he said: “It is indeed my humble recommendation to Mr President that you are a man of history. You were a senior man to very many of us in the struggle at the time when the journey of Nigeria and the prospect of democracy was less certain.“And also remember that, at a time when the PDP was in office and when we were in office, and they were saying that there was going to be a federal might, some of us stood out to say no.”Interest of elite has been protected – Prof OjoProf. Gbade Ojo, a political scientist at the University of Ilorin, in an interview with Daily Trust, said: “With the swiftness of the passage of the electoral bill, one begins to interrogate the motive. The legislature appears to have turned into a team of the executive, ensuring that the interest of Mr. President is protected in the 2027 general election.”According to him, the balance of power between the executive and the legislature makes it difficult for opposing voices to significantly alter the course of such critical legislation.“Your voice is not strong enough to stop the National Assembly or to stop Mr. President. So we are waiting for what will happen eventually. The sense one gets is that the interest of the government elite has been protected, not necessarily that of the electorate”, he stated.Drawing international comparisons, he added that even advanced democracies grapple with technological vulnerabilities.“If in the United States there were allegations of interference and controversies linked to internet glitches, then we must accept that no system is foolproof.“Websites can be hacked. There is nothing people cannot attempt. So let us believe the electoral body will do the right thing at the right time”, he said.But an associate professor, Lanre Sikiru Nurudeen, a political scientist at Al-Hikmah University, defended the legislative process that produced the amended law, insisting that due constitutional procedures were followed.PDP, NNPP fault assentThe Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) described the signing of the Electoral Bill as an existential threat to democracy. Its National Publicity Secretary, Ini Ememobong, in a statement, said:“The hurried grant of a presidential assent to the contentious bill as passed by both chambers of the National Assembly, despite the widespread opposition by Nigerians, is a confirmation of the fact that this was a well-choreographed drama by the APC.“The party’s fear of the inevitable defeat from a free and fair election is palpable and they are unable to conceal it again. “This is indeed a sad day for democracy. The Nigerian people have been dealt a bad card, which existentially threatens democracy.” The spokesperson of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Ladipo Johnson, alleged that the swift passage and assent to the Electoral Bill reflected a coordinated agenda between the Presidency and the National Assembly.“Well, I am not surprised that the bill passed as it did and that the president signed it into law immediately. Because if you look at the history, you would know that the National Assembly we have, the Senate, the House of Reps, are largely a rubber-stamped National Assembly. They probably do virtually everything that the presidency wants.”Johnson further alleged that the decision was politically motivated, particularly regarding the controversy over electronic transmission of election results.On concerns that possible gaps in the new law may emerge after scrutiny by civil society organisations and the media, Johnson suggested that such considerations were not a priority for those behind the legislation.“They don’t care about that,” he said.“There was a bill presented to the National Assembly and all the processes were concluded. We had the first reading, second reading, committee stage, report stage and third reading in both chambers”, he noted.He explained that where there were divergences between the Senate and the House of Representatives, a joint committee was constituted to harmonise differences before the final version was adopted.“After harmonisation, the new position was taken back to both chambers and passed. So procedurally, everything was done in line with legislative tradition.“We are less than a year to the next election, and the electoral body has already fixed a date. We cannot continue to delay the legal framework guiding that process.“For me, there is no problem with the president signing the bill into law. If he delays, it creates uncertainty. The legislature has taken a position, and it is rare for lawmakers to have consensus on every issue. Some will support it, others will oppose it. That is democracy”, he said.On the issue of electronic transmission, Nurudeen supported what he described as a blended approach, combining technology with manual safeguards.“Internet penetration in Nigeria is not one hundred percent,” he said. “We cannot insist that every single result must be uploaded instantly before collation can proceed. “There is no foolproof system anywhere in the world. Hacking and interference are possibilities. That is why we must have the best of both worlds”, he noted.Another political analyst, Jide Ojo, said the president’s assent to the Electoral Bill could pose serious legal, financial and operational challenges ahead of the 2027 general elections.Speaking to Daily Trust, he said the haste with which the bil