The Electoral Act Amendment) 2026 was signed into law by President Bola Tinubu, who stated that electronic transmission of election results in Nigeria is only supplementary and should not be used in place of human transmission.
This occurred on the same day that Mr. Mike Igini, the former Cross River State Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, accused the judiciary of being responsible for the electoral system’s ongoing problems.
In the modified Electoral Act, he also criticised the National Assembly for keeping manual collation as a fallback method for electronic transmission of election results.
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. READ MORE
