Electoral Act: Senate Summons Emergency Plenary

Amid the public outrage trailing its rejection of mandatory e-transmission of election results, the Senate has summoned an emergency session, ostensibly to further deliberate on the matter and consider a reversal of the decision.

In a terse statement on Sunday, the Clerk of the Senate, Dr Emmanuel Odo, announced that the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, had summoned the session to be held on Tuesday.

“The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio has directed the reconvening of plenary for an emergency sitting on Tuesday, February 10th 2026”, Odo announced.

The Senate had adjourned plenary for two weeks on Wednesday, last week, to allow senators to attend to the defence of the 2026 budget estimates by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government.

While passing the Electoral Bill, 2026 on Wednesday last week, the Senate had removed mandatory electronic transmission (real time) of election results by the Independent National Electoral Commission from Clause 60 (3) of the bill.

The action of the Senate meant a retention of the provision in the 2022 Electoral Act, which only recognises the “transfer” of election results in a manner prescribed by INEC.

The voting was immediately met with outrage, as Nigerians across board, civil society groups, opposition political parties and election monitors, who had been hopeful that electronic transmission of results would be in the bill, were disappointed.

Findings by the Nigerian Tribune on Sunday showed that senators had reportedly come under serious pressure to reconsider their stance, especially that the Votes and Proceedings of the day’s sitting had yet to be passed.

“There is nothing else urgent, to my understanding, if not the electoral bill.

“There is a conference committee of the Senate and the House of Representatives that is about to sit.

The reconvening is to pass the votes and proceedings”, one legislative source, told the newspaper in Abuja on Sunday.

Some senators, led by Enyinnaya Abaribe, apparently taken unawares when the amendment was made, were still arguing as of Thursday, last week, that what was passed included electronic transmission of results.

But, on Saturday, Akpabio himself eventually confirmed that the Senate removed mandatory, real-time transmission of results from the bill.

Akpabio said the Senate took the decision because it believed “technology must save and not endanger democracy.”

Akpabio spoke in Abuja at the unveiling of a book, “The Burden of Legislators in Nigeria”, authored by Senator Effiong Bob.