The National Chairman of the Action Democratic Party (ADP), Sani Yabagi, has described the newly signed Electoral Act 2026 as “anti-people” and a threat to Nigeria’s democracy.
Yabagi made the remarks during an interview on Focus Nigeria, a programme on African Independent Television, where he criticised the amendment for allegedly reintroducing discretionary powers that could allow interference in the electoral process.
“There was nothing fundamentally wrong with what we had before this amendment, except in a few areas,” he said. “But the most important aspect of that law was the discretion given to INEC, to manually interfere with the process.”
While acknowledging the role of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in accrediting voters, Yabagi insisted that mandatory electronic transmission of results is essential to protecting electoral integrity.
“BVAS can confirm voters. But we needed something to confirm the winners,” he said. “The only time-stamped device that is incontrovertible anywhere, including in court, is transmission from the voting point.”
According to him, although BVAS has been widely described as a game-changer, its impact could be undermined if the law does not mandate electronic transmission of results.
“Everybody keeps saying BVAS is a game-changer. Yes, but we need a game-changer too. If you keep making election results doubtful, it will affect democracy itself,” he added.
Yabagi also faulted provisions permitting a return to manual collation in the event of network failures, arguing that such clauses weaken reforms designed to curb manipulation.
“To say that when the network fails, we should go back to the manual process is to make nonsense of everything we have talked about,” he said.
He further alleged that the All Progressives Congress (APC) was seeking to exploit potential network disruptions during elections.
“When a political party is working against the interests of the people and their sovereignty, then it must be called out. The whole APC is working against the interests of Nigerians,” Yabagi said.
The ADP chairman maintained that electoral malpractice often occurs during collation and the physical movement of results.
“What we all know is that election rigging takes place during collation, when results are moved from one place to another. That’s when people have the ability to change results,” he stated.
He warned that weakening electronic safeguards could place Nigeria’s democracy in a precarious position.
“They are putting our democracy in danger. We call it democracy, but it is like a monarchical system, because every institution is in the hands of the man who is also contesting,” Yabagi said.
As of the time of filing this report, the APC had not responded to the allegations.
