Electoral Act 2026: gains and missed opportunities

 

Introduction

Nigeria is earnestly preparing for her eight general elections in 2027. Ahead of that, machinery was set in motion by critical actors and stakeholders to play their part in the upcoming epochal event. The country’s judiciary had made profound statements on our last electoral act passed in 2022. The Supreme Court among other things said the Independent National Electoral Commission designed result viewing portal known as IREV is unknown to our laws and as such could not be basis upon which alleged electoral fraud of 2023 general elections could be based, INEC in February 2024 published its 526-page official report on the 2023 General Elections.  By December 2024, immediate past chairman of INEC Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, says the commission has come up with 142 recommendations to improve the future electoral process. By February 2024, the National Assembly inaugurated House of Rep and Senate committees on electoral reforms. On Wednesday, February 18, 2026, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed the electoral bill 2026 into law. All efforts were geared towards ensuring better future elections.

National Assembly and Electoral Reforms

The Senate and House of Representatives had been playing pivotal roles in engendering electoral reforms since 2001 when the first Electoral Act was passed. Controversies led to the annulment and replacement of the 2001 effort with another Electoral Act in 2002. Since then, we have had 2006, 2010, 2022 and now 2026 Electoral Acts making a total of six electoral acts since this Fourth Republic started in 1999.  Since the first successful effort at amending the Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution in 2010, the grundnorm has been altered five times with the sixth effort in the offing. The million-dollar question has been, has Nigeria’s electoral democracy improved with all these law reforms? The answer is yes.

There has been significant progress made in our electoral process. Once upon a time, ballot box snatching and stuffing was the order of the day. Underage and multiple registration were very common. Electoral violence was also a defining factor of Nigeria’s election up till 2011. However, with the infusion of technology, gradually the electoral process is getting sanitised. With the customisation and colour-coding of ballot papers, thugs no longer see any utility value in snatching and stuffing ballot boxes. With the introduction of Permanent Voters Card ahead of 2011 general elections by Prof. Attahiru Jega’s INEC, the credibility quotient of Nigeria’s National Register of Voters soared as voters biometrics captured at registration are now embedded in microchip contained in the PVC. By 2015 when INEC introduced the Smart Card Reader, that device became another game changer especially as it eliminates impersonation, under age voting and multiple voting. In fact, ex-President Muhammadu Buhari said he would not have won the 2015 presidential election but for the deployment of SCR.

However, the courts including the Supreme Court said Smart Card Reader is unknown to our election jurisprudence even though it was not said to be illegal. That device had to be captured in the 2022 Electoral Act in section 47 (2) when it says “To vote, the presiding officer shall use a smart card reader or any other technological device that may be prescribed by the Commission, for the accreditation of voters, to verify, confirm or authenticate the particulars of the intending voter in the manner prescribed by the Commission.”

In 2020, INEC came up with another innovation, the INEC Result Viewing Portal which it first deployed in Nassarawa State Constituency election. It was meant to enhance transparency in the result collation management value chain. Thus far, it had been used in several off-cycle governorship elections, 2023 general elections and the bye elections. The IREV had enabled those who want to do parallel vote tabulation in their various situation rooms to do so. However, it’s not a result collation device or database because it is just a mere upload of the already published EC8A result sheet which had been given to the Polling Agents and the Police and a copy of which is taken to the Ward Collation Centre to serve as primary ingredients of the collation process.  A copy is even pasted at eh Polling Unit for public to view.

Though there was no formal mention of transmission of result to IREV portal in the Electoral Act 2022, however, the National Assembly said in the following provisions contained in Section 60  (5) that “The presiding officer shall transfer the results including total number of accredited voters and the results of the ballot in a manner as prescribed by the Commission.  In fact, in section 60 (6) there was a penalty prescribed for non-compliance when the law said “A presiding officer who wilfully contravenes any provision of this section commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not more than N500,000 or imprisonment for a term of at least six months.”

Incidentally the Supreme Court allegedly said the IREV is unknown to our electoral law even though it was contained in INEC’s guidelines. This is why the 10^th National Assembly decided to have it spelt out in the newly signed Electoral Act 2026.

High wire drama over electronic transmission of results

I follow the recent high wire drama by opposition lawmakers and a section of the civil society who protested and wanted electronic transmission of results without any fail-safe proviso option. To me it’s all grandstanding and showmanship. There is nowhere in the world where electronic transmission of result is relied upon 100 per cent. There must and should be a fallback position or Plan B if technology fails. That is already guaranteed in Section 60(3) of the newly signed Electoral Act 2026. The most important thing is that the E.A 2026 has now given full legal backing to the IREV portal and makes electronic transmission of EC8A result sheet mandatory. Election tribunal and other courts will no longer say it is unknown to our electoral jurisprudence.

Salient provisions in Electoral Act 2026

It is saddening to me that the number of days for INEC to issue Notice of Election and Timetable of Activities has been reduced from 360 days to 300 days in order to accommodate concerns raised by a section of Nigeria’s Muslim community that the already announced date of February 20 and March 6 by INEC will coincide with Ramadan in 2027. For God’s sake, as it coincides with Ramadan, so it is with the Lenten period of Christians. Assuming the date for the general elections has been inserted in the constitution as with the case in USA and Ghana, will those agitating for elections not to fall within Ramadan ask that the Constitution be altered to accommodate their belief? When I went to observe the Ghana presidential election run-off in 2008, the poll date  fell on Sunday and the Ghana Christian community did not raise eyebrow. They simply had their church service on Saturday.

The removal of Indirect Primary from the tripod of Direct, Indirect and Consensus which was in the 2022 Electoral Act is also a double-edged sword. While Indirect Primary is prone to vote trading and delegate inducement given the smaller number of electors, the Consensus option that has been retained has the capacity to engender “Baba Sope” Politics where a handful of elders determines who gets the party nomination tickets. Imposition of candidates will likely now be the order of the day as is currently the practice in some of the political parties where one powerful individual or a powerful group determines the party flagbearers under the guise of adopting Consensus mode of party primary. The other provision that says election fund should be released to INEC six months to the general election is a dangerous provision. Six months may be too short for INEC to do many of its multi-billion procurement. The one-year provision in the Electoral Act 2022 should have been retained.

Missed opportunities

It is unfortunate that the NASS kept the sixth constitution alteration effort in limbo while giving priority to the Electoral Act when they know that there may be need for consequential alteration of the electoral act when the constitution is eventually altered. What the 10^th NASS has done, like their 9^th NASS counterpart, was to put the cart before the horse. They passed the Electoral Act before the Constitution amendment. Other opportunities the current reform has missed include lack of provision for early voting, voting by proxy, Diaspora voting, and voting by prisoners. Expanding voting rights including reducing age qualification to seek election from 25 years to 21 years as is the case in Ghana are all lost in the current round of electoral reform.

Conclusion

Now that we have a new Electoral Act 2026, it behooves the INEC, National Orientation Agency, the media and Civil Society Organisations to study this new piece of legislation and educate the masses on the key provisions. Political parties and candidates should note that rather than putting their hopes on electronic transmission of results to IREV portal, they should mobilise resources and ensure that they field a corps of well-trained Polling Agents who can be their whistleblowers when electoral fraud is afoot and whose exhibits and oral testimonies in court and tribunal carry weight in determining electoral fraud cases. I do hope that INEC, political parties and other stakeholders who are duty bearers in the electoral process will keep fidelity with the new Electoral Act 2026 in the performance of their electoral duties.

Jide is a Development Consultant, Author and Public Affairs Analyst. I.G: @jideojong