Abbas Tajudeen
PicNews
When Speaker Tajudeen Abbas told an EU delegation that President Bola Tinubu “wants the 2027 election to be a lot more transparent than the 2023 poll,” he was signaling a commitment—at least rhetorically—to improving the integrity of future elections. The House of Representatives is already working to amend the Electoral Act 2022, he said, to address criticisms raised by international observers after the 2023 elections.
Abbas explained that both chambers of the National Assembly recently held meetings to iron out their differences over the amendments. Because some changes require simple legislative action and others require constitutional amendment, the leadership has decided to “fast-track and isolate the electoral issues” as a discrete package. The plan is to push these reforms through the National Assembly and then send them to state houses of assembly for concurrence, within a relatively short timeframe—between now and December.
Among the proposals under consideration are institutional reforms intended to better align Nigeria’s electoral system with international standards. Abbas mentioned ideas like reserving parliamentary seats for women and persons with disabilities, granting constitutional roles and financial autonomy for traditional rulers, and holding all major elections—presidential, National Assembly, gubernatorial, and state assemblies—on the same day. The “single-day election” suggestion is intended to reduce the cost, logistical burden, and possibly voter fatigue associated with staggered polls.
Abbas also appealed to the EU delegation to support the publicity and advocacy for these reforms. He emphasized that state houses of assembly would be instrumental in approving the changes, so their buy-in is crucial. In legislative terms, the goal is to ensure that INEC (the electoral commission) has the necessary legal and operational tools to deliver “a much better” election in 2027 than what occurred in 2023.
Taken together, these statements reflect a mixture of political rhetoric and legislative intention. Whether the promised transparency will be realized will depend on a range of factors: the political will to override vested interests, the capacity and independence of electoral institutions, how much the reforms reflect the critiques of past elections, and how state-level actors respond when the changes reach them.
