The outcome of Tuesday’s emergency sessions of the Senate and the House of Representatives in Abuja has once again thrown up a hybrid Electoral Act that leaves much to be desired. While the lawmakers insist that progress has been made, Nigerians know better. It is clearly not yet uhuru, because the resolutions of both chambers also retained the controversial reduction of the election period to 60 days, contrary to the spirit and letter of the electoral reforms long canvassed by stakeholders.
The implication, therefore, is that opposition political parties and new entrants into the political space may not have enough time to prepare adequately for the upcoming general elections. This development tilts the political field unfairly and reinforces the suspicion that the system is being designed to favour the already powerful. Revising the electoral timeline and yet refusing to yield to the overwhelming clamour for real-time electronic transmission of results is a dangerous gamble—a time bomb waiting to explode. Civil rights and pro-democracy organisations have been unequivocal in their response to the latest legislative outcome.
Across the country, civil society groups have reiterated that anything short of mandatory real-time electronic transmission of results from polling units to the IReV platform is unacceptable. They insist that electronic transmission is not a luxury but a necessity, the only credible antidote to manipulation, rigging and post-election litigations that have become the defining features of Nigeria’s electoral history. The people are saying that nothing, except electronic transfer of electoral results from the polling booth to the IReV, will appeal to them. Whatever is happening now smacks of abracadabra and is least expected from lawmakers in a democracy.
This situation has heightened apprehension among citizens and raises a fundamental question: why is it so difficult to harmonise the Electoral Act (Repeal and Re-enactment) Bill 2026 in line with the will of the people? What exactly are the lawmakers afraid of—transparency or the people’s verdict? Both the House of Representatives and the Senate have continued to limp between two irreconcilable positions on whether or not to fully embrace electronic transmission of results. It has become painfully clear that many lawmakers now represent themselves and entrenched political interests, not the people they claim to serve. The prolonged delay and the half-hearted compromises in passing the Electoral Act were clear warning signs that nothing revolutionary was going to emerge from the process.
That was why many Nigerians and several Civil Society Organisations took to the streets, vowing to sustain peaceful protests until a people-oriented Electoral Act is finally enacted. In Nigeria today, the greatest fear confronting citizens in our democracy is fraud in the electoral process, arising from vote buying, intimidation and harassment of voters, rigging, manipulation of results, ballot stuffing, snatching of ballot boxes and fleeing with them, among other criminal acts. To say that Nigerians have lost confidence in the electoral process since civilian rule was restored in 1999 is, indeed, an understatement.
Elections have become war theatres, not platforms for expressing the people’s will. For many years, Nigerians have called for a clearer vision of what democracy truly represents, yet little has changed. Instead, what we see is widespread disillusionment in the entire political arrangement. That votes in Nigeria do not count, no matter how hard the people try, has become a national cliché. Elections are now seen by many as mere rituals—formalities devoid of genuine meaning—from the local government to the federal level. The prevailing belief is that the worst of us continue to rule the best of us. However, the call for government to do the right thing and allow free and fair elections has continued to resonate across the land. The bitter experience of the controversial 2023 general elections, widely regarded as one of the worst in Nigeria’s history, should serve as a lesson to those in authority. Nigerians are now more politically aware, more vocal and more determined.
They may not allow themselves to be mocked again by a political class that appears increasingly disconnected from the people’s aspirations. The 2023 elections may be history, but the scars remain fresh in the national memory. The stage is now being set for the 2027 general elections, especially as the Independent National Electoral Commission has released the electoral timetable. Allowing the failures of the past to repeat themselves in 2027 will not augur well for anybody—government, political parties or the nation at large. We therefore urge INEC to rewrite the ugly chapters of the past and deliver credible, transparent and technologically driven elections in the next general polls.
ON VOTERS’ EDUCATION: We urge Nigerian youths of voting age to come out in their numbers to register and obtain their Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs) ahead of the 2027 general elections. We equally urge INEC to ensure that the continuous voters’ registration exercise currently ongoing takes place in every nook and cranny of the country, to avoid disenfranchising millions of eligible voters. This is not the time for Nigerians to sit back and complain about bad governance; democracy thrives only when the people actively participate. There is an urgent need for the electoral body to be transparent at every stage as Nigeria marches towards 2027.
The hybrid Electoral Act currently passed by the Senate should not discourage citizens from collecting their voters’ cards or engaging the process. Change will not come by silence or apathy. It will come through the ballot. The Senate may have passed a bill, but the ultimate power still resides with the people. In the final analysis, democracy is not about speeches in Abuja—it is a game of numbers, and the numbers belong to the people.
