Nigeria’s Senate convened an emergency plenary session on Tuesday and, for the second time within a single week, reworked the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2026 adjusting the statutory notice period for elections downward by 60 days to prevent the 2027 general elections from coinciding with the Ramadan period, while simultaneously rejecting, once again, the mandatory real-time electronic transmission of election results.
The session, which dissolved into the Committee of the Whole for rescission and recommittal of the Electoral Act, 2022 (Repeal and Enactment) Bill, 2026, was marked by tension, a closed-door session that lasted nearly an hour, a formal call for division, and a floor confrontation that at one point drew a cluster of senators around the table of Senate President Godswill Akpabio.
The trigger for Tuesday’s emergency session was a motion filed by the Senate Leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, representing Ekiti Central, who cited the discovery of what he described as fundamental discrepancies and logistical concerns with the bill as previously passed. Central among those concerns was the realisation that the 360-day notice requirement in Clause 28 of the bill — which mandates the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to publish election notices at least 360 days before polling day — could force INEC to schedule the 2027 presidential and National Assembly elections squarely within the Ramadan fasting period.
INEC had already announced February 20, 2027, as the date for the presidential and National Assembly elections, with governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections set for March 6, 2027. The Ramadan fast in 2027 is projected to fall in approximately the same window, depending on the Islamic lunar calendar.
Bamidele’s motion argued that the convergence of elections with Ramadan “could adversely affect voter turnout, logistical coordination, stakeholder engagement, and the overall inclusiveness and credibility of the electoral process.” The motion further identified discrepancies in the Long Title and no fewer than 21 clauses of the bill specifically Clauses 6, 9, 10, 22, 23, 28, 29, 32, 42, 47, 51, 60, 62, 64, 65, 73, 77, 86, 87, 89, 93, and 143 citing issues relating to cross-referencing, serial numbering, and internal consistency.
The motion noted that a Technical Committee, comprising the leadership of both chambers of the National Assembly, members of the Conference Committee, the Clerks of the Senate and House of Representatives, and legal drafting experts from the Directorate of Legal Services, had already convened to harmonise the identified anomalies before the rescission motion was brought to the floor.
Acting under Orders 1(b) and 52(6) of the Senate Standing Orders, the chamber rescinded its earlier decision and recommitted the bill to the Committee of the Whole. The central amendment that emerged from Tuesday’s clause-by-clause deliberation was a reduction of the election notice period from 360 days to 300 days.
The amended Clause 28 now reads, in part: “The Commission shall, not later than 300 days before the day appointed for holding of an election under this Bill, publish a notice in each State of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory stating the date of the election and appointing the place at which nomination papers are to be delivered.”
The clause further provides that in the case of a by-election, INEC shall publish the required notice not later than 14 days before the appointed date, and stipulates that candidate substitution in by-elections shall only be permitted upon the death of a candidate, with the relevant political party required to submit the name of a substitute to the commission within seven days.
The practical effect of the 60-day reduction is to give INEC the flexibility to fix election dates between December 2026 and January 2027, thereby avoiding the Ramadan period entirely. Whether INEC will ultimately revise its announced timetable remains to be seen, as the commission retains its constitutional independence in fixing and managing electoral calendars within whatever statutory window the law provides.
While the Ramadan-driven adjustment to Clause 28 generated relatively little friction on the floor, the question of electronic transmission of election results was a different matter entirely — and it was this issue that brought the session to a dramatic standstill.
Proceedings stalled at Clause 60 when Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, representing Abia South under the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), raised a point of order that immediately unsettled the chamber. Senators began moving in small groups, converging on Akpabio’s table for consultations. Unable to resolve the tension publicly, the Senate went into a closed session that lasted nearly an hour.
When the chamber reconvened, Abaribe cited Order 72(1) and formally called for a division on Clause 60(3), specifically targeting the proviso that permits manual collation of results via Form EC8A where electronic transmission fails due to network difficulties. Abaribe’s position was that the proviso should be removed entirely, making electronic transmission mandatory and non-negotiable under all circumstances.
Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin weighed in on the procedural dimension, citing Order 52(6) to argue that it would be out of order to revisit any provision on which the Senate President had already ruled. That submission triggered another wave of protests on the floor, during which Senators Sunday Karimi of APC, Kogi West, and Abaribe had a brief but visible face-off.
Senate Leader Bamidele, who had sponsored the motion for rescission, stepped in to clarify that because the chamber had rescinded its earlier decisions entirely, all provisions were open to fresh consideration — and that Abaribe’s demand was therefore procedurally sound.
Akpabio, presiding, suggested from the chair that Abaribe’s push for a division was partly an exercise in publicly demonstrating his position to Nigerians. He nonetheless sustained the point of order and allowed the division to proceed, describing the unfolding moment as “the beauty of democracy in full action.
When senators cast their votes by standing and raising their hands, the outcome was decisive and, for advocates of mandatory e-transmission, deeply disappointing. Fifty-five senators voted to retain the proviso permitting manual transmission where network failure occurs. Only 14 senators — drawn predominantly from opposition ranks — voted in favour of removing the proviso and mandating real-time electronic transmission in all circumstances.
Among those who voted with the majority was the Deputy Minority Leader, Senator Oyewunmi Olalere of PDP, Osun West — a detail that underscored the cross-partisan nature of support for the manual fallback provision.
Akpabio, addressing the chamber after the vote was counted, declared that those who voted for the manual transmission proviso “had just saved Nigeria’s democracy,” while also paying tribute to Abaribe and the minority who stood their ground.
The outcome means the Senate has now, twice within one week, officially rejected the position of civil society groups, opposition lawmakers, and electoral reform advocates who have long argued that real-time electronic transmission of results is the single most critical safeguard against result manipulation at the collation stage.
The argument over electronic transmission of election results is not new to Nigeria’s legislative history. It has been one of the most fiercely contested provisions in every major electoral reform cycle since the early 2000s. The 2022 Electoral Act, which the current bill seeks to repeal and reenact, itself contained provisions on electronic transmission that were heavily contested during the Ninth National Assembly. At the time, the Senate had similarly voted against mandatory electronic transmission, before a compromise clause was eventually reached that gave INEC discretionary authority to transmit results electronically.
That compromise was applied with varying degrees of success and controversy in the 2023 general elections, during which INEC deployed its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV). The 2023 election results transmission process generated significant litigation and controversy, with the presidential election result in particular becoming the subject of a landmark Supreme Court case. Critics argued that the manual collation system allowed for the substitution and alteration of results at collation centres, while INEC and government officials maintained that the process was legally sound and robustly managed.
It is in that context that the current Senate’s insistence on retaining a manual fallback option takes on particular significance. Proponents of the provision argue that Nigeria’s telecommunications infrastructure remains uneven, and that mandating electronic-only transmission in areas with poor network coverage could create legal uncertainty around election results. Opponents counter that the manual fallback is precisely the loophole through which electoral manipulation enters the system.
Civil society groups and the organised labour movement had, ahead of Tuesday’s session, staged a protest at the National Assembly, demanding that electronic transmission be made mandatory before the 2027 elections. Their position received no satisfaction in the vote that followed.
With Tuesday’s amendments concluded, the bill will proceed through the remaining legislative steps, including concurrence with the House of Representatives, presidential assent, and, ultimately, INEC’s implementation of the new statutory framework. Whether the House of Representatives, which had also passed an earlier version of the bill, will align with the Senate’s amended version — particularly on the e-transmission question — remains a key variable to watch.
INEC, for its part, has not publicly commented on the Senate’s amendments as of the time of this report. The commission’s announced timetable, which places the 2027 presidential election on February 20 of that year, may now need to be reviewed in light of the 300-day notice window the amended Clause 28 creates.
With the 2027 electoral cycle now formally underway in legislative terms, Tuesday’s developments in the Senate chamber have set the initial parameters and the early battle lines of what promises to be a deeply contested electoral season.
