All you should know about the controversial Electoral Bill Amendment

As Nigeria marches toward the 2027 general elections, the National Assembly has become the latest battlefield for the soul of the country’s democracy. At the centre of this storm is the Electoral Act 2022 (Amendment) Bill.

While the promise of technological infusion was meant to be the antidote to Nigeria’s history of magical arithmetic at the polls, recent legislative manoeuvres have left citizens questioning whether the law is being strengthened or systematically hollowed out.

The journey to the 2027 elections is haunted by the ghost of 2023. During the last presidential cycle, the failure to upload polling unit results to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal in real-time created a vacuum of information that fuelled allegations of rigging.

Although the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the 2022 Act did not make electronic transmission mandatory, the public outcry demanded a legislative fix to ensure such a technical glitch never decides an election again.

Entering 2026, the National Assembly took up the task of amending the Act. The goal was simple: to make the electronic transmission of results a legal requirement, thereby removing the discretionary powers that allowed INEC to switch between digital and manual processes at will.

Electoral Act: What the Senate passed on February 10, 2026

On Tuesday, February 10, 2026, the Nigerian Senate reached a critical, albeit controversial, milestone in the amendment process. Following nearly a week of intense back-and-forth and public protests led by opposition figures like Peter Obi and Rotimi Amaechi, the Senate finalised its position on Clause 60 of the Amendment Bill.

The Senate officially moved to make real-time electronic transmission of polling unit results mandatory. However, the victory for transparency advocates came with a heavy caveat. The Senate inserted a “safety valve”, stating that if technology fails or transmission becomes difficult, the Form EC8A (the manual result sheet) shall take precedence as the primary means of collation.

While senators argue this is a pragmatic safeguard against network failures or cyberattacks, Dengiyefa Angalapu, a research analyst at the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), says, “This is definitely not what civil society advocated for. We wanted a firm and unambiguous process in which the electronic transmission of results is compulsory, without exceptions.”

He further argues that “the fundamental challenge is that Nigerians know their politicians and do not trust them. Despite the incremental introduction of technology into our electoral system from 2011 to date, political actors have consistently found loopholes to subvert the process.” 

“It is based on the character of Nigerian politicians that citizens are worried about the option of reverting to manual transmission when electronic systems fail. Experience suggests that any excuse that creates legal ambiguity will be exploited to justify electoral irregularities, just as the 2023 technical glitch became the central point of contention all the way to the Supreme Court,” he adds.

What the people want

The Nigerian electorate and civil society organisations (CSOs) have been unambiguous in their demands.

They are not asking for a pragmatic middle ground; they are demanding a firm, unambiguous digital mandate.

1. Mandatory e-transmission without exceptions: The core demand is that the electronic result captured at the polling unit must be the final, legal authority. The people want the law to compel INEC to ensure its infrastructure is foolproof rather than providing a legal escape clause that justifies a return to manual opacity.

2. Elimination of discretionary powers: Voters want the “human factor” removed from the collation process. As Angalapu notes, “The challenge within Nigeria’s electoral system is not the absence of technology. It is a crisis of trust and the character deficit within the political class, which remains insufficiently anchored in democratic values.”

“Even if we deploy the full spectrum of electoral technologies, including electronic voting, questions will persist: Who controls the backend? Who designed the system? Who manages the dashboard? No technology is entirely independent of human agency. Technology inevitably reflects the principles, incentives, and ethics of those who design and operate it,” he argues. 

The public wants the law to prioritise the digital footprint over human interference.

3. Strict protocols for failure: If a manual backup must exist, the people want strict, transparent, and court-admissible protocols for when and how it is triggered, rather than leaving it to the whims of a presiding officer.

As the bill now moves to a conference committee of 24 members from both legislative chambers to reconcile the versions passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives, the stakes are existential. If the final version retains a weak manual override, the 2027 elections risk repeating the 2023 chaos. 

As the legislative process concludes, the question remains: will the law serve the voter, or will it serve the political actors lurking in the loopholes?

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