Notwithstanding the heated public concerns generated by the amendments in the Electoral Act 2022, President Bola Tinubu signed the new Act on Wednesday, February 18, closing the legislative chapter on contentious electoral reforms but ushering in fresh uncertainty ahead of the 2027 general elections. For many observers, the move ultimately placed the burden squarely on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to implement disputed transmission provisions. The development formally establishes the legal framework for conducting the general elections, just days after INEC released the official election timetable.

While all appears to be set for the 2027 elections in terms of the enabling law, mistrust, concerns, and growing apathy will linger and further jeopardise participation in the elections, as witnessed in the FCT polls. There is a system around elections that, for them to be free and fair, must be vibrant and free of meddling. Nigeria is due for such a system, and the time is now.
 
The Electoral Act remains the backbone of Nigeria’s democratic architecture — governing timelines, procedures and the integrity of result management. Last week’s drama in the Red Chamber reflected the enormous stakes ahead of 2027: balancing technology with logistics, legal certainty with flexibility, and electoral integrity with religious inclusivity.
 
The Electoral Act 2026, an amendment to the 2022 Act, has become the law guiding elections in Nigeria. In signing the law, President Tinubu raised questions about the readiness for the elections, especially regarding the e-transmission of results, despite INEC’s many assurances. “Maybe Nigerians should question our broadband capability. How technically (ready) are we today? How technically (ready) will we be tomorrow? To answer the call of either real-time or no,” he said. He argued that the credibility of elections depends more on human management than electronic systems; that voters still cast ballots manually; that results are still counted manually at polling units; and what is transmitted electronically is simply the arithmetic accuracy of the manual count captured on the EC8A form. The new law allows real-time uploading of results while also allowing polling officers to fall back on the physical EC8A result sheet if “network challenges” prevent electronic transmission.
 
One way to address Nigerians’ concerns is to ensure that the processes governing the conduct of elections, including the transmission of their results, are transparent. Given the sore points of the underlying controversy, the question is whether an election would be perceived as credible if its results were transmitted manually or electronically in real time. Pointers from recent elections suggest that Nigerians have greater confidence when results are transmitted electronically and verifiably, almost immediately after the conduct. The controversy, therefore, would probably have been needless if there had been a consensus to move the country’s electoral system and democracy forward.
  
Progressing from manual efforts to digital, less stressful, less time-consuming endeavours is the way to go globally. The reservations in the country, as highlighted by the lawmakers, include poor network coverage, especially in rural areas; cybersecurity risks; infrastructure deficiencies, such as unreliable electricity; and the risk of legal disputes, which they cite as reasons for their initial reservations about the electronic transfer of results. While some of these concerns are verifiable and borne out of practical experience, the National Assembly should nevertheless do the needful and put the polity to rest.
  
In the build-up to the 2023 general elections, INEC said it had the capacity to transmit election results directly from polling units to its Result Viewing Portal (IREV). But the electoral body failed to upload the presidential election results, blaming it on a glitch, even though it uploaded the results of the National Assembly elections held at the same time. That prompted suspicion from sections of the populace that INEC did not act with integrity.
  
Notwithstanding, the network challenge argument is not helpful to truly move the country forward. The reference to communication failure is an indictment of the lawmakers and the government that have left their constituencies without Internet access in 2026, when the world is discussing Artificial Intelligence (AI). The political class, including lawmakers, should accept blame for leaving Nigeria in the dark for so long. Not only should they be ashamed, but they should work relentlessly to rectify the problem and make electronic transfer possible and seamless in 2027.
 
The 2026 Electoral Act is not entirely fraught with issues; for instance, voters must now present three acceptable documents to be registered: a birth certificate, a passport, or a National Identification Number.

Driver’s licences and national identity cards have been removed. The Act also introduced a downloadable voter card, allowing Nigerians to access their cards from the INEC website rather than queuing for hours at commission offices. This will encourage voter participation. The controversial indirect primaries that empowered infamous “delegates” have been scrapped entirely. Political parties must now nominate candidates only through direct primaries or consensus. The timeline for disbursing election funds to INEC has been halved from 12 months to six months before the general elections. Political parties must now submit their candidates’ lists at least 120 days before election day, down from 180. And INEC must publish its final list of candidates 60 days before election day, replacing the previous 150-day window. These provisions indicate some level of progress.
 
For a country to truly be a democracy, its elections must be both free and fair. But this basic facet of democracy is increasingly in doubt. To address this, Nigeria should begin to use elections to determine governance. The government had sufficient time between the last general elections and now to address most challenges in Internet penetration. If it has not done so, it is because politicians have limited respect for elections, and they should accept responsibility for that assumption and its consequences.
 
This time, Nigerians insist that elections must not only be free, fair and credible, but also seen to be so; and this is achievable by ensuring that the country’s electoral system works for all. Free and fair elections are fair from a foregone conclusion, even in countries that style themselves as democracies (by holding elections) or consider their democracies strong (because previous elections have been free and fair). Even in the United States, often considered a beacon of democracy and freedom, the 2019 presidential election flirted with being neither free nor fair. Although the run-up to the election and the election itself were free and fair, the loser did not accept the result. Only the strength and independence of the judiciary and other government bodies ensured the transfer of power from the loser to the winner. Rescuing Nigeria’s tottering democracy is not the job of the judiciary; it rests with everyone, strengthened by an electoral system free from all forms of meddling.