By Reuben Abati

The elections, held over the weekend, Saturday, 21 February, were interesting for the obvious reason that they were clearly the litmus test cases for the Electoral Act, 2026, which was signed into law by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Tuesday, 18 February.

The President had promised last week that we were “all going to see democracy flourish” and Senate President Godswill Akpabio added that the amendments to the Electoral Act 2022 will “enable us to conduct free and fair elections in Nigeria that will be acceptable to the international community and all Nigerians, that will meet the yearnings and aspirations of all Nigerians as democrats.

” The major bone of contention in passing the new law was Section 60 (3), on whether or not the best deal for Nigeria would be the mandatory, real time electronic transmission of results from the polling unit to the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IREV). After much controversy, the National Assembly chose a hybrid format: manual and electronic, which in real terms does not appear new, or revolutionary.

The underlying principle remained the same nonetheless: to ensure the integrity, transparency and accountability of the electoral process and rebuild confidence and trust. The test came, just three days after the President gave his assent, in the shape of elections.

In Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), elections were held in the six municipal areas to elect six chairmen and 62 councillors. In Rivers State, there were by-elections to fill two vacant seats in the House of Assembly – Ahoada East II and Khana II state constituencies, and in Kano, two more seats also needed to be filled, the previous occupiers having died – Kano Municipal and Ungogo constituencies. Did the elections give the impression of a flourishing democracy? Can the elections be considered acceptable to all Nigerians? Did they meet “the yearnings and aspirations of all Nigerians as democrats?” The obvious answer is in the negative.

The elections have ignited fears and anxieties about what to expect in the general elections of 2027; they have raised questions about the electoral process, in terms of management, and the role of stakeholders – the electoral commission(INEC), state actors, security agencies, political parties and the voting public, as well as the credibility of results. In an earlier commentary in this column titled, “Senate and the Electoral Act amendment”, I concluded by saying that “the best electoral framework can be designed with good intentions; it would take more than an amended Electoral Act to prevent electoral fraud.”

Civil society activists, the opposition, and many Nigerians were not convinced that the Electoral Act 2026 was the best for Nigeria, nor did anyone assume that it would end up as the magic cure for electoral malpractices. The cynics have just been proven right, as it would appear that nothing has changed.

In Abuja, the FCT, the results, as announced, showed the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) winning in five of the six municipal areas: Abuja Municipal, Bwari, Kwali, Abaji and Kuje.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won in Gwagwalada. Dr Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, a PDP chieftain, has said that the PDP’s victory is a clear indication of the party’s resurgence. Others claim that the APC deliberately allowed the PDP to win in at least one area council to give the impression that there was actually a fair competition for the people’s votes.

The truth lies elsewhere. The PDP was able to win in Gwagwalada because the APC candidate who got 17, 788 votes does not have as much local support as the winner, Mohammed Kasim of the PDP. Other political parties performed poorly in all the area councils, because they did not have strong structures on the ground.

The ADC in particular, ran a disorganised, discordant, campaign driven more by the personalities and ambitions of those with an eye on the party’s presidential ticket, rather than a deliberate and organised team work.

The best showing posted by the ADC was in Abuja Municipal with 12,109 votes, less than a third of the APC’s winning votes of 40,295 votes. The party got 1,366 votes in Gwagwalada, 4,254 in Bwari, a mere 37 votes in Abaji, (where there was a large voter turnout), 716 votes in Kuje and 1,073 in Kwali. As expected, there have been disputations about the results across board, with the opposition parties alleging that the votes were rigged.

Even with its 5–1 victory, the ruling APC has complained about the delay of results in two wards in Kuje: Central and Kabi, and also the results from Gudun Karya ward. Dr Moses Paul, the ADC candidate in Abuja Municipal is inconsolable. He alleges that some of his agents were threatened and voters were suppressed in favour of the ruling party. In a statement on Sunday, 22 February, Dr Paul, who has lived in Abuja for 40 years, says, “No force in history has ever defeated an idea whose time has come”.

Even the PDP is complaining. Ini Ememobong, spokesperson of the PDP, says many things went wrong in the FCT elections. The PDP has already set up a legal team led by its National Legal Adviser, Shafi Bara’u, to challenge the results, and asked aggrieved candidates to get ready to go to court. With so much confusion over area council elections in the Federal Capital Territory, it may be said that the battle for the 2027 general elections may have started, and the expectations that the spate of litigations would be reduced may be no more than mere wishful thinking.

Voter turn-out, voter apathy, was an issue in Abuja. Out of a total number of 1,680,315 registered voters, only about 239,000 voters showed up to vote, representing about 15 per cent. The whole idea of democracy is that it would be participatory, inclusive, free, fair and credible. Democracy is also meant to be of the people, by the people, for the people.

When the people refuse to show up on polling day, it means that they have their doubts about the process, they do not trust it, or they are afraid to participate. The Electoral Act 2026 obviously has not built any trust or confidence. Those who argue that the turn out in the FCT shows an improvement compared to the past miss the point: 15 per cent, by all considerations, is a failure rate in simple mathematics; it is not good enough to argue that in the 2022 Area Council elections in Abuja, only 9.4 per cent of registered voters showed up.

It was not only in Abuja that the people failed to turn out in large numbers (except perhaps in Abaji), voter apathy was also recorded in Rivers and Kano states. Political parties, the INEC, and the National Orientation Agency, have a lot to do to educate the voting public and invest more in voter mobilisation.

The elections on 21 February are the second set conducted under Professor Joash Amupitan, the first being the Anambra elections in November 2025, but there are bigger challenges ahead in the Ekiti (20 June), Osun (8 August) gubernatorial elections and the general elections of 2027.  For the people’s votes to count, they must come out to vote, and perform their civic duty as responsible citizens.

INEC has been commended for the peaceful conduct of the recent elections but that should not push INEC to become triumphant. There have been reports of voters not finding their names in designated polling units. INEC denies migrating voters from one unit to another but admits that it created split units, which were located a few metres away from the original polling units known to voters, in order to reduce congestion on Election Day.

And that voters were informed accordingly four days before voting day. In Kuje Area Council, election results were not announced until Sunday afternoon, 22 February, due to a “logistical error” involving a collation officer. It was most clever of INEC to have avoided the use of the phrase “technical glitches”, although it talked about “the difficult terrain of Kabi ward, which delayed the final collation of Area Council results.” What kind of difficult terrain, please? In most parts of the FCT, INEC officials arrived early, much earlier than the voters who arrived in trickles or did not even bother to vote in many places. INEC can only count the votes cast, those who stayed away failed to make a statement about their choice, and the naysayers obviously include those who are most vocal on social media and beer parlours, but when it is Election Day, they disappear. Elections are won and lost at polling units, not on social media.

Vote buying was recorded in Abuja. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) deployed its officers in the FCT, and ended up arresting 20 persons for vote buying and selling. Over ₦17 million was seized. One of the suspects was arrested with ₦13.5 million in his possession. Those who sell and buy votes are saboteurs. They and their sponsors deserve stiff punishment.

The impunity remains because they always get away with it. The EFCC did certainly much better than other security agencies. In one polling unit in Nyanya General Hospital, there is a video in circulation showing persons trying to buy votes, with the police and Civil Defence officers in attendance doing nothing while party agents took up the matter.

In Rivers State, there were two by elections: in Ahoada East to fill the seat vacated by Honourable Edison Ehie, and in Khana Constituency II to replace Honourable Dinebari Lolo who died. The turn-out was low, and the two seats were won by the APC. Governor Simi Fubara described the election as a “family affair” and urged the people in both constituencies to vote for the APC.

Voting materials did not arrive early – a minus for INEC. But the results did not come as a surprise, with Governor Fubara having deported himself from the PDP to the APC, and his godfather, Minister Nyesom Wike breathing down everybody’s neck in Rivers to justify his much-advertised loyalty to the APC and President Bola Tinubu. Rivers State is now a perfect case of state capture!

In Kano, the APC similarly won the House of Assembly by-elections in Kano Municipal and Ungogo. Voter apathy was also a problem. In the 2023 general elections, both constituencies recorded a total turn-out figure of 130,000 viz: Kano Municipal – 60,000 and Ungogo – 70,000, but this time around voter participation was less than 17,000 in both constituencies – less than 15 per cent of the voter turn-out in 2023.  The two winners were sons of their predecessors, who both died on 24 December, 2025.

Their sons have now been elected to replace them on the same day, 21 February. There was almost no contest in Kano State. The New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) did not participate because the two candidates who defected, along with Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, to the APC were previously handpicked for the position, out of compassion, by the NNPP leader, Dr Kwankwaso.

The PDP and the ADC also stayed away, citing the Ramadan season and the small scope of the by-elections. Governor Yusuf may celebrate the victory as evidence of his capacity to deliver Kano state to the ruling APC, which he recently joined, but definitely this is not a true test of the future of Kano politics. Kano is a major political battleground where the competition is fierce.

Elections in that state in 2027 would be a tough battle among gladiators, except, of course, the APC manages to capture the entire state politically and completely, but that looks like a very long shot. The same people of Kano who did not show up in these by-elections will troop out en masse in 2027. They have an independent mind of their own.  

This is why the APC must moderate its chest-beating. APC Chairman, Professor Nentawe Yiltwada; the Lagos APC; Minister Nyesom Wike; the Southern Governors’ Forum; and other APC chieftains, have attributed their party’s victory this past weekend to its wide acceptance by Nigerians, an endorsement of President Tinubu, and a signal of the APC’s impending victory in the 2027 general elections.

They sound as if their party has already won a second term, but they must be concerned about the challenge of legitimacy, and the crisis of alienation which the low voter turn-out indicates. But by far, the biggest problem, in Rivers State and the FCT, is the role played by Minister Nyesom Wike. The President attributes the party’s success to Wike’s achievements in the FCT.

He might as well add Rivers, with he, Wike, having beaten everybody in that state, including the governor, the youths and those walking stick-swinging elders, into total submission. Wike declared a public holiday ahead of the election in the FCT and imposed a curfew in the city. He has no powers to do so.

On Election Day, he disobeyed his own law by circulating around the city like smallpox, claiming he was monitoring the election. He is not a registered voter in the FCT and he is not an accredited election observer! He has been accused correctly by the ADC of “direct interference” without any constitutional role.

Rather than praise him, the President should call him to order. Nobody is above the law, as we have seen in the examples of the one formerly known as Prince Andrew in the UK, and President Donald Trump in the United States who has just been reminded of the same principle. 

Reuben Abati, a former presidential spokesperson, writes from Lagos.