Ogene on the signing of Electoral Act into law by Tinubu

Beng a text of the statement by Hon. Afam Victor Ogene, Leader, Labour Party Caucus, House of Representatives, on the signing of the Electoral Act, 2026 by President Bola Tinubu

Let me begin by congratulating President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the leadership of the National Assembly for the signing of the contentious Electoral Bill, 2026, into law, with the speed of light.

It is quite interesting that, even before the ink with which the Parliament crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s on the clean copies of the Bill dried up, the President has gleefully put his imprimateur on the Bill, leaving Nigerians to wonder if, indeed, the Executive had ample time to look through the document.

Coming on the day the two largest religions in the world. Christians and Muslims began this year’s Ramadan and Lenten season, it is, indeed, a sad day for democracy.

Gone with the signing are the genuine concerns of apprehensive Nigerians regarding what the new Act portends to the integrity of the country’s future elections.

In fact, Nigerians and indeed the world must now begin to see the clear difference between campaign promises and actual motives of political players. While it is convenient outside the confines of power to oppose incremental increase in the price of petroleum products, it is convenient to pronounce ‘subsidy gone’ when they have the opportunity; while it is right to advocate electronic voting in 2013, it has become obtuse, 13 years after, to even canvass a fragment of it, electronic transmission of results; while it was convenient to ask a sitting administration to quit, on account of an alleged inability to halt the spread of insecurity, today under their watch and allure of office, insecurity of multivarious form have become an insistent by-word.

For emphasis, on January 13, 2013, National Publicity Secretary of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, had in a statement said: “We assure INEC of our full support towards using electronic voting in 2015. We also appeal to all other political parties, Civil Society Organizations and indeed all Nigerians to join us in pushing for a system that will eliminate the role of thugs and sideline vote thieves during our elections, in addition to making our elections free, fair and credible.”

Today, 13 years afterward, neither Mohammed, who moved on to become Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture for eight years, and his principal, who is now our country’s current leader, see anything worthy in electronic transmission of results, much more electronic voting.

Now that they have had their way, we call upon Nigerians not to despair. On the contrary, the battle for our country’s redemption has only just begun.

As an opposition bloc, we certainly have our job cut out: the mobilization of fellow Nigerians to reject, at the polls, those who specialize in asking them to do only as they say, instead of living by their own creed.