The controversy surrounding the Senate’s passage of the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill 2026 was resolved yesterday, as the Red Chamber formally endorsed electronic transmission of election results—without including the contentious “real-time” clause.
The Senate adopted the Votes and Proceedings of the bill, which had scaled third reading on February 4 during a rowdy plenary session.
However, the Senate’s version differs from that of the House of Representatives, which earlier passed a provision mandating real-time transmission of results. As a result, a conference committee made up of members from both chambers will be constituted to harmonise the differences before the final version is transmitted to the President for assent.
Under the amendment to Section 60(3), read and adopted by Senate President Godswill Akpabio, the bill provides:
“The Presiding Officer shall electronically transmit the results from each polling unit to the INEC Result Viewing Portal, and such transmission shall be done after the prescribed Form EC8A has been signed and stamped by the Presiding Officer and countersigned by the candidates or polling agents where available at the polling unit.
“But if the electronic transmission of the result fails as a result of communication failure, and it becomes impossible to transmit the result electronically, the signed and stamped Form EC8A by the Presiding Officer, and countersigned by the candidates or polling agents where available, shall in such a case be the primary source of collation and declaration of results.”
In contrast, the House of Representatives version, passed in December, states:
“The Commission shall electronically transmit the results from each polling unit to the IREV portal in real time, and each transmission shall be done simultaneously with the physical collation of results.”
The House also approved Section 60(5), which requires the Presiding Officer to transmit results, including the number of accredited voters, to the next level of collation.
Meanwhile, the current Electoral Act 2022—under which the 2023 general elections were conducted and which is being repealed—provides in Section 60(5) that the Presiding Officer shall transfer results “in a manner as prescribed by the Commission.”
Outside the National Assembly, protesters for the second consecutive day demanded the inclusion of real-time electronic transmission of results in the amended law. Among them was former Rivers State Governor and immediate past Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi.
Security operatives prevented the protesters from entering the National Assembly complex.
