President Bola Tinubu has signed the Electoral Act, 2022 (Repeal and Re-Enactment) Bill 2026 into law, clearing the way for revised electoral rules ahead of Nigeria’s 2027 general elections.
RoundReports reports that the assent followed the bill’s passage by the National Assembly on Tuesday after months of deliberations and a final week marked by sharp divisions over how election results should be transmitted.
The legislation became the centre of intense debate over Clause 60, which governs the electronic transmission of results and the circumstances under which manual collation may be used.
Lawmakers and public figures have disagreed over whether allowing manual transmission in the event of network failure could undermine confidence in the process.
In the Senate, proceedings turned rowdy as the chamber resumed consideration of the bill. Enyinnaya Abaribe demanded a division on Clause 60, a move initially resisted by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, who said the request had earlier been withdrawn.
Opposition senators immediately challenged that assertion. Citing Order 52(6), the Deputy Senate President, Barau Jibrin, argued it would be out of order to revisit a matter on which the presiding officer had already ruled, triggering further uproar in the chamber.
The Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, later intervened, saying he had sponsored the motion for rescission and that earlier decisions of the Senate were no longer binding. He maintained that Abaribe’s demand complied with the terms of that motion.
Akpabio suggested the call for a division was an attempt to publicly underline a political position, but eventually sustained the point of order.
Rising under Order 72(1), Abaribe formally called for a division on Clause 60(3), seeking the removal of the proviso that permits manual transmission of results if electronic transmission fails.
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When the vote was taken, Akpabio directed senators to stand according to their positions and later announced that 55 senators supported retaining the proviso, while 15 opposed it.
Earlier in the day, Senate proceedings had been briefly stalled during clause-by-clause consideration of the bill, following a successful motion to rescind an earlier amendment.
The chamber dissolved into a committee of the whole to reconsider and reenact the proposed legislation, but deliberations paused at Clause 60 after Abaribe raised his point of order.
The Senate subsequently moved into a closed-door session as consultations continued.
Similar tensions played out in the House of Representatives where lawmakers disagreed over a motion to rescind the passage of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, which had provided for real-time electronic transmission of results.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Rules and Business, Francis Waive, moved the rescission in line with the Senate’s position.
When the Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, put the motion to a voice vote, opposition lawmakers said the “nays” were louder, but the Speaker ruled in favour of the “ayes,” prompting protests and an executive session.
The House had earlier passed the Electoral Act in December 2025, adopting compulsory real-time transmission of election results to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s results viewing portal, IReV.
With presidential assent now secured, the amended Act sets the legal framework under which the 2027 polls will be conducted, even as debate continues over how its provisions will be implemented in practice.