Nigeria\u2019s President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday signed into law an amended Electoral Act that critics warn may weaken safeguards ahead of next year\u2019s presidential election.<\/p>\n
Tinubu said the changes were intended to strengthen electoral processes and provide \u201cgreater clarity\u201d in the conduction of polls.<\/p>\n
But the opposition People\u2019s Democratic Party has described the signing of the Bill as an existential threat to democracy.<\/p>\n
Together with a cross-section of civil society, they are unhappy about the removal of a clause mandating the \u201creal-time\u201d electronic transmission of election results<\/p>\n
In December, the House of Representatives passed a version of the Bill saying results should be sent in real time from polling stations to the Independent National Electoral Commission.<\/p>\n
But the Senate rejected the clause, retaining an earlier provision that sees results transmitted first to collation centres.<\/p>\n
It later amended its decision making electronic transmission optional, but with the caveat that it would revert to paper confirmation of results when internet connectivity failed.<\/p>\n
Civil society groups and some opposition figures have long warned this could weaken safeguards meant to protect the transparency and credibility of elections.<\/p>\n
The new law will be applied in the 2027 polls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigeria\u2019s President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday signed into law an amended Electoral Act that critics warn may weaken safeguards ahead of next year\u2019s presidential election. Tinubu said the changes were intended to strengthen electoral processes and provide \u201cgreater clarity\u201d in the conduction of polls. But the opposition People\u2019s Democratic Party has described the signing of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":19879,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Africa News","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,27],"tags":[196,4875,4876,175,1156],"class_list":["post-19877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-west-africa","tag-bola-tinubu","tag-electoral-act","tag-house-of-representatives","tag-nigeria","tag-peoples-democratic-party"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19878,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19877\/revisions\/19878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}