Why new electoral act is needed for 2027 elections — Itodo

Samson Itodo, the executive Director of YIAGA Africa, a civil society organisation on electoral and governance issues, in this interview, said something must be done within the next two weeks to remedy the delay around the passage of the electoral bill.

The House of Representatives has passed its version of the amendment to the 2025 electoral bill, but it is still pending at the Senate. What do you make of the delay?

It is very concerning the approach that the Senate has adopted in this amendment process. First, it began with changing the chair of the Senate committee on INEC abruptly. No one expected any change. Yes, it is within the powers of the Senate president. But last year, shockingly, Senator Sharafadeen Ali was removed and replaced by Senator Simon Lalong just midway into the reform process.

And then, as of December last year, December 19, the House of Reps passed its own. So, it is very surprising that the Senate hasn’t passed its own version of the bill because they’re really stalling the process. In the last round of amendments the Senate concluded its own process on time. So, it’s very disturbing.

And now, it’s end of the month. The Senate resumed, they debated these issues and then they constituted an ad hoc committee to harmonise their positions. This really projects that it’s either the Senate is tactically delaying this process so that when it is concluded, we will now be self-afraid that, well, the elections are closed and there is no need to amend the law. It is very concerning.

The Senate is gradually projecting that it doesn’t want to conclude on this amendment process. But they have given the committee 48 hours; let’s see what happens next week.

And I’ve said this repeatedly. If this is the same National Assembly that could pass the National Anthem Bill in a couple of hours, then they should have concluded this entire process if there is that commitment on the part of the leadership of the Senate because the House has concluded its job.

Do you think it’s a deliberate act?

Exactly. If that’s not the case, when the matter came up on Wednesday, the reason it was deferred to Thursday was because Senator Lalong was absent. For heaven’s sake, when has the absence of the chair of a committee prevented the National Assembly from conducting its legislative business? There’s a deputy chair of the committee, right? So why is he absent? So, you clearly see that there are signs actually projecting that the Senate may be reluctant to conclude this process in good time.

Considering the fact that the general elections may be in February 2027, do you think much can still be done on the bill?

There’s something that can be done. We recommended that to INEC and I know that INEC is planning based on the current 2022 act. If it changes, they will change their plans and their approach. But INEC is required to issue a timetable for elections one year before the elections. So we expect that by February 20th, INEC will issue the timetable for the 2027 elections in line with the current provision of the law.

In fact, even in the proposed 2026 bill, that amendment was not altered. So INEC would still need to release the timetable for elections in February. But this uncertainty does not give stakeholders the opportunity for elections.

Secondly, the more they delay, the more it will impact the implementation of the law. In 2022, when the law was signed by the president by February 25, we still had implementation problems because there were ambiguities in the law. Political parties, other stakeholders, didn’t understand the implementation and the operation of provisions of the bill.

Here is a bill that provides for electronic transmission of results, a bill that also mandates comparison between electronically transmitted results and the hard copies. This is the same bill that has downloadable PVCs that can be used for voting.

All of these require INEC to issue guidelines. It needs to be debated and discussed by stakeholders. For heaven’s sake, if primaries are going to start in April and you’re just signing the bill into law in February, it creates implementation problems.

And this is the concern that we’ve expressed consistently, that when you’re amending laws two years before an election to ensure certainty, to prevent against any vulnerabilities in the system, conclude your process. But it’s unfortunate that we’re here at this point.

The input YIAGA Africa made into the proposed electoral act, was it reflected?

I am a member of the technical committee on this electoral amendment. So, I followed this process, made contributions. So, this is a process that we have supported since 2023.

Which particular areas did you recommend changes?

Civil society groups submitted a citizen’s memo on electoral reforms to both chambers. Some of the issues that were canvassed were things like early voting, that there is need for early voting for journalists who are involved in elections, election observers, security agencies, including INEC officials, to exercise their right. Over 3 million Nigerians are disenfranchised because they are involved in one election duty or the other. So the proposal for early voting was there.

The second was prisoners voting. Electronic transmission of results was one of the main proposals canvassed by citizens. Glad that in the bill, you have electronic transmission of results.

You also have this collation. How do you streamline the coalition process so that electronically transmitted results can form part of the collation process because of the judicial pronouncement made on that particular matter? There’s also the issue around disciplining resident electoral commissioners; that INEC needs to have the power to discipline resident electoral commissioners when they engage in behaviors that undermine the integrity of the process. There’s also the proposal that political parties must maintain updated, accurate, and verifiable register of their members to prevent the manipulation of party primaries that we often see during candidate nomination processes.

So, these are some of the proposals that we made before the committees both in the House and the Senate. Some of them were captured in the bill, but some of them were not captured, especially things like early voting. The committee dropped early voting and said Nigeria was not mature for that.

What they forget is that journalists involved in election coverage, security agencies, INEC officials, and accredited observers have been denied the opportunity to vote in 2027.

Is it too late for you to insist that some of these observations you made, which were not included in the version passed by the House of Representatives to be included?

Well, the Senate, now, they’re also considering some provisions. They can consider this, but I want to raise one particular provision or two provisions in the bill that are problematic.

The first one is, the bill contains a provision under section 64 that INEC has the power to review results declared under duress or in violation of the electoral guidelines. In other words, when the results have been manipulated, INEC can review the results within seven days. That administrative review given to INEC is to address some of the challenges and manipulations we see during elections to also reduce election litigation.

Now, one thing this act did is that the only basis, the only time INEC can activate its power of review is when it has received reports from its officials; that INEC officials must submit a report that they have been forced to declare results under duress or they’ve been forced to manipulate the process. That is the only time that INEC can activate the power of review. That provision is very, very dangerous because it places overbearing powers on INEC.

And here is the problem. What if in a situation it is the REC or the returning officer that is responsible or is complicit in that manipulation? Will they report themselves? No, they will not report themselves. That is why you have party agents, accredited observers. These observers and also party agents can submit reports to INEC. In other countries, if you have a report of election manipulation, you tender it before the commission and the commission will look at the reports on its merit.

But in a situation where you are saying the only basis for reviewing results is if you receive reports from your officials, I think that is problematic. And that is coming from the supplementary guidelines that INEC issued before Professor Mahmoud left. I think that provision should not stand.

It should be retained as currently construed in the electoral act. Because if you limit only the power of reporting to INEC officials, then it will be counterproductive and undermine the entire rationale while the power of administrative review was given to INEC. The second one is the cost of campaigns that was increased.

It really creates an uneven playing field for everyone. Presidential elections moved from N5 billion to N10 billion, governors from N1 billion to N3 billion.

And all of this is priming our electoral process as a plutocracy and not a democracy. So these are some of the positions in the bill that I personally feel should not stand.

One area of contention by aspirants in the last election was the non-inclusion of statutory delegates in voting. Has the matter been taken care of?

I think one particular provision that these lawmakers were very particular about was they were trying to cure the mischief and the gap having legislated themselves out of primaries in the last round of amendments. Legislators are now back as statutory delegates in primaries because they checked section 84. What they did now is that legislators are automatic delegates for party primaries, which is one of the proposals that they were very particular about because it serves their interests.

What would be your recommendation for smooth elections?

I think the only advice is this bill needs to be passed within the next two weeks and signed into law by the president. The Senate should conclude its process next week, let them harmonise with the House and transmit to the president.

And the president should assent to the bill without any further delay so that we don’t jeopardise the legitimacy of the 2027 elections. I think that’s very crucial. The second one is that INEC needs to; once this bill is signed into law, ensure multi-stakeholder engagement in the development of the guidelines, also socialising the provisions of the act. We need guidelines, specific guidelines to prevent any confusion or ambiguity on the coalition process, the resource coalition process and the resource transmission process. We need guidelines and stakeholders should be involved in the guidelines and ensure that they are unambiguous.

Thirdly, is that the credibility of the 2027 elections will be determined by how citizens participate and engage in this process. And I have said it consistently that voters would need to prepare for the 2027 elections differently. This is not an election where you go, vote and then you leave the polling station.

As you go to the polling unit, be prepared to stay there and protect your mandate in a very civil and non-violent manner. Because vigilance is what’s required to prevent elections from being stolen. And lastly, is this triangle of compromise that involves three institutions, INEC, the judiciary and security agencies.

We need to ensure that this triangle of compromise and these institutions are put on that intense scrutiny. And we have to continue to hold them to higher standards so that the 2027 elections will inspire trust and confidence of Nigerians.

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