By George Mgbeleke <\/p>\n
To avert the clsh in Election Timetable,Senate, at its emergency plenary on Tuesday, reworked for the second time in one week, the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, 2026 , rescinding the action it earlier reached last week when it passed the bill.<\/p>\n
The Red Chamber achieved this by readjusting the 360-day notice requirement prescribed in clause 28 to ensure that the 2027 Presidential and National Assembly elections do not fall within the period of RAMADAN.<\/p>\n
The upper legislative chamber also for the second time in a week, and after a call for division rejected \u2018real time \u2018 electronic transmission of election results ; favouring the manual mode where network fails.<\/p>\n
Coming under ORDER 1(b) and 52(6), Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele moved the motion to rescind and re-commit the Electoral Act 2022( Repeal and Enactment ) bill 2026 to the committee of the whole-asking the Senate to completely jettison every thing it had previously done on the Electoral Amenment bill 2026.<\/p>\n
In doing so, Bamidele explained that the review had become necessary after the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC )met with both chambers of the National Assembly on ways to resolve conflict in the timing of the election and the Muslim festival of Ramadan.<\/p>\n
The Independent National Electoral Commission had last Friday announced that the 2027 Presidential and National Assembly elections will be held on February 20, with governorship and state Houses of Assembly polls scheduled for March 6, 2027.<\/p>\n
The timetable comes amid ongoing debate on the Electoral Act Amendment bill to allow for electronic transmission of election results in real time.<\/p>\n
It also comes amid reactions from the Muslim community kicking strongly against INEC\u2019s proposed election dates.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the Senate was again forced into another emergency session on the knotty Electoral Act Amendment bill 2026 with Bamidele\u2019s motion to rework the document.<\/p>\n
The motion was quickly seconded by the Chairman of Senate Committee on Electoral Matters, Simon Lalong who explained that INEC Chairman, Joash Amupitan did not deliberately fix the election dates to conflict with the Ramadan as being speculated in many quarters.<\/p>\n
The Plateau state senator further explained that it was the immediate past INEC Chairman, MAMOOD YAKUBU, that actually set the template for the election dates from 2019 to 2031.<\/p>\n
In trying to avert the likely conflict in the election dates and the Ramadan, SENATE said it had taken notice that the coincidence with the Muslim festival of RAMADAN \u201c could adversely affect voters turnout, INEC\u2019s preparation and the overall credibility of the electoral process.<\/p>\n
Senate further disclosed that it had uncovered
\ndiscrepancies in the Long Title and 22 separate clauses – including the controversial clause 60 that deals with transmission of election results electronically from each polling unit to INEC IREV portal in real time.<\/p>\n
Senate had last week passed electronic transmission of election results from polling units but rejected the phrase \u201creal time \u201c when it included a proviso that where network fails, then the duly signed Form EC8A by the Presiding Officer and counter-signed by party agents (where available ) shall be the primary source of election results ).<\/p>\n
When it was time for the clause by clause consideration of the bill, Senate breezely passed clauses 1 to 59 -including clause 28 on the 360 days notice of election requirements with relative ease, slashing the period down by sixty days -from 360 to 300 days.<\/p>\n
Trouble, however, started when lawmakers reached the contentious clause 60 with Senator Enyinnnaya Abaribe raising a Point of Order.<\/p>\n
A long pause ensued and unable to resolve-senate went into a closed session that lasted almost an hour.<\/p>\n
When the doors eventually reopened, the arguments continued even more forcefully with Senator Abaribe calling for DIVISION on the proviso in clause 60(3) that permits manual transmission of election results where network fails.<\/p>\n
Abaribe eventually had the chance to call for the DIVISION after intervention from the Senate leader that it was within his privilege to do so.<\/p>\n
To the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, the beauty of democracy is in full action as he quickly moderated the votes -asking Senators to signify where they belong by standing up and raising up their hands in support of the proviso or against it.<\/p>\n
At the end of voting , 55 senators, including the Deputy Minority Leader, Oyewunmi Olalere
\nvoted to retain the proviso to allow manual transmission where the network fails.<\/p>\n
It was a crushing defeat for Abaribe and 14 others mainly from the opposition, who insisted on MANDATORY electronic transmission of election results in \u201creal time\u201d.<\/p>\n
Akpabio believed those who voted for the proviso for manual transmission had just saved Nigeria\u2019s democracy even as he hailed Abaribe and others with him for standing their grounds.<\/p>\n
With this development, SENATE has for the second time in one week, effectively rejected \u201creal time\u201d transmission of election results, retaining its earlier position that where network fails, then the signed Form EC8A (MANUAL transmission ) becomes the primary source of election results.<\/p>\n
Having achieved its objective for meeting on Tuesday, the Red Chamber adjourned plenary till Tuesday, February 24,2027<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By George Mgbeleke To avert the clsh in Election Timetable,Senate, at its emergency plenary on Tuesday, reworked for the second time in one week, the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, 2026 , rescinding the action it earlier reached last week when it passed the bill. The Red Chamber achieved this by readjusting the 360-day notice requirement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[77,5948,4895],"class_list":["post-11145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-election","tag-electronic","tag-transmission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11146,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11145\/revisions\/11146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}