Landmines in Electoral Act Ahead of 2027 Polls

With political calculations for 2027 already underway, a quiet but consequential legal fault line may be forming beneath the Electoral Act 2026, which if not addressed, could taint the elections, Davidson Iriekpen writes

When Nigeria undertook sweeping electoral reforms in 2026, the expectation was that a more credible, transparent, and competitive political process would emerge.

Only a short distance into its life cycle, a troubling pattern is already evident: The law may have changed slightly, but the game remains unchanged.

It would be recalled that President Bola Tinubu assented to the amended Electoral Act in 2026 on February 19. While many Nigerians were looking forward to seeing that the Electoral Act addresses several recurring deficiencies, including election timelines and the use of technology in voter identification and result management, the Act has been marked by controversy.

Many opposition parties, civil society organisations, labour groups, youth movements, and prominent public commentators had vehemently opposed the Act, insisting that the real challenge was rejection of real-time transmission of results from polling units to INEC’s central server.

However, little did they know that a quiet but consequential legal fault line was beneath the electoral framework.

Even those who are supposed to champion the legal fault lines have ignored them, preferring to ‘politick’ and return when it could be too late.

Now, with political calculations for 2027 already underway, calls for amendments to the Act are growing louder, amid warnings that its current provisions could enable manipulation and widespread malpractice.

For many, a close reading of the Electoral Act 2026 reveals drafting inconsistencies that could become explosive in a tightly contested presidential or governorship race. The tension lies in the uneasy coexistence between electronic transmission of results and the continued primacy of manual collation.

Specifically, they listed sections 60(3), 63(2), 65, 77, 137(3), and 138(2), as areas that could weaken electoral transparency and public trust if left unchanged.

For instance, Section 60(3) which has to do with counting of votes and forms, states: “The Presiding Officer shall electronically transmit the results from each polling unit to the IREV portal and such transmission shall be done after the prescribed Form EC8A has been signed and stamped by the Presiding Officer and/or countersigned by the candidates or Polling agents where available at the Polling Unit.

“Provided that if the electronic transmission of the result fails as a result of communication failure and it becomes impossible to transmit the result contained in form EC8A signed and stamped by the Presiding Officer and countersigned by the candidates or polling agents where available at the polling unit, the form EC8A shall remain the primary source of collation and declaration of the result.”

In effect, the law appears to create two parallel evidentiary tracks without clearly establishing which prevails in the event of discrepancies. In a politically charged 2027 environment, ambiguity could prove costly.

What this means is that if electronically transmitted results differ, even slightly from manually collated figures at ward, local government or state collation centres, candidates and parties may weaponise whichever version that favours their position.

The absence of explicit legal hierarchy between digital and manual records could open the floodgates to conflicting interpretations, inconsistent administrative decisions and prolonged post-election litigation.

More critically, the drafting gap may shift the battleground from the polling unit where transparency is strongest to collation centres and courtrooms, where oversight and technical interpretations dominate.

Another section that has rendered many Nigerians uncomfortable is 63(2) which states that “Where the returning officer is satisfied that a ballot paper which does not bear the official mark was from a book of ballot papers which was furnished to the Presiding Officer of the polling unity in which the vote was cast for use at the election in question, he or she shall, notwithstanding the absence of the officer mark, count that ballot paper.”

They argued that the section would enable wide-scale malpractice among presiding officers to manipulate elections by ensuring that they accept ballot papers without official marks for elections.

They also criticised Section 65 which gives powers to INEC to review the declaration as well as Section 137 which makes it necessary to join electoral presiding officers and returning officers to give an account of their duties, should there be petitions filed against the conduct of the election in their areas of duty at the tribunal.

It was to deal with this that Section 137 was introduced in the 2022 Act to the effect that where documents are before the court, it shall not be necessary to call oral evidence.

Before the 2022 Act, courts were complaining that documents were always being dumped on them by the defence. They wanted the petitioners to come and give oral evidence. But the 2026  Act has shielded them from accountability.

The effect of this would definitely be the barrage of the cries from the opposition that the judiciary compromised.

Also being questioned is the inclusion of Section 138 in the Act, which, according to observers has always been one of the rigging provisions they had been agitating and crying should be removed.  

The section which had to do with persons entitled to present election petitions, states: “Where the petitioner complains of the conduct of an electoral officer, a presiding or returning officer, it shall not be necessary to join such officers or persons notwithstanding the nature of the complaint and the commission shall, in this instance, be – (a) made a respondent; and (b) deemed to be defending the petition for itself and on behalf of its officers or such persons”.

They argued that the section would empower politicians and their allies to produce their own ballot papers and results, which would compromise the elections.

To many Nigerians, some sections were deliberately inserted in the Act to give the ruling party an advantage. And how the opposition political parties hope to navigate these booby traps set against them by the ruling APC-controlled National Assembly and still hope to win the 2027 presidential election is left to be seen. 

To many, the 2026 Electoral Act is not a good legal framework that will give the opposition a perfect playing field.  It is dotted with landmines. Genuine reform requires more than cautious amendments. It demands clear, enforceable provisions that reduce discretion where it has historically enabled abuse.

It is against this background that the senator representing the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mrs. Ireti Kingibe, while speaking on ARISE NEWS programme, Prime Time, recently, raised concerns that the Electoral Act was significantly altered from what was collectively agreed upon, stating that nearly every aspect of the original proposal was altered.

Kingibe, who said she was part of the Electoral Reforms Committee, said many provisions in the current Act differ from what was initially agreed upon. According to her, the document presented later did not reflect the outcome of the committee’s work. She emphasised that she still possesses copies of the original draft and questioned some of the changes that appeared in the final version.

The lawmaker highlighted concerns about election procedures, particularly the absence of standard security features on ballot papers, noting that historically, ballot papers issued by INEC have always included safeguards to prevent irregularities, making the reported changes unusual.