Amended electoral act will ensure every vote counts—Akpabio
The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, has declared that the Electoral Act 2026 (Amendment), signed into law by President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday, will ensure that every Nigerian vote counts.
Akpabio said the new piece of legislation eliminates the perennial problem of result manipulation between polling units and collation centres.
Speaking to journalists shortly after the signing ceremony at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Akpabio said the new law addresses the core concerns raised by Nigerians over the integrity of the electoral process and introduces 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 represents 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 remains 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 from 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,” he said.
Akpabio added, “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.”
The Senate President said the implication is that Nigerians will now be able to compare results uploaded to the portal with what is 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.
“And 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 in plenary sessions 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.
Akpabio also highlighted other provisions in the new law, including the introduction of direct primaries for political parties, which will allow party members to vote directly for candidates of their choice rather than relying on delegate selection.
“Participative democracy, more inclusiveness. Members of different political parties are now allowed to do direct primaries.
“That means you can choose the person you want. Delegate selection, of course, one person can write the list and then just submit, but this time around, the members who are in the political party will stand up and vote for their candidates and the candidates of their choice,” he said.
The Senate President said the amendment also addresses scenarios where election winners are disqualified by courts, noting that instead of declaring the runner-up as the winner, the law now mandates 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 scores out of 300,000 votes, one person scores 290,000, 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 a winner.
“All those things are eliminated. We have now recommended that, where such a case happens, they should call for another election,” he said.
He noted that the same principle now applies to governorship elections, where candidates who fail to meet the constitutional requirement of scoring 25 per cent of votes in at least two-thirds of local government areas cannot be declared winners even if they scored the second-highest votes.
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.
The Electoral Act 2026 (Amendment) comes days after INEC released the timetable for the 2027 general elections.
Tinubu gave ascent to the Electoral Act 2026 (Amendment) at a signing ceremony at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, around 05:00pm, with principal officers of the National Assembly in attendance.
The 2027 general elections are scheduled to be held on February 20 for Presidential and National Assembly elections and March 6 for Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections.