President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday signed the Electoral Act 2026 (Amendment) Bill into law, just days after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) unveiled its roadmap for the 2027 general elections.
The signing ceremony took place at the State House in Abuja at about 5:00 p.m., with senior leaders of the National Assembly in attendance. Lawmakers had fast-tracked the bill’s passage a day earlier.
Debate over the legislation centered on the contentious issue of real-time electronic transmission of polling unit results to INEC’s servers — a provision many civil society groups argue is crucial to reducing electoral fraud.
Last week, several civil society organisations and opposition figures staged protests at the National Assembly, urging lawmakers to make live electronic transmission of results mandatory in order to strengthen transparency and public confidence in the electoral process.
While protest leaders maintained that expanded use of technology would significantly reduce the risk of manipulation, some chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC) argued that unreliable network coverage in parts of rural Nigeria makes full electronic transmission impractical.
They instead advocated a hybrid system combining electronic transmission with manual collation methods.
