The Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP), on Wednesday, expressed concern and disappointment over President Bola Tinubu’s decision to sign the Electoral Act 2026 (Amendment) Bill into law, citing structural loopholes in the latest amendment.

The group, an umbrella organisation of several political parties, in a statement issued by its deputy national publicity secretary, James Ezema, stated that Mr Tinubu’s decision to sign the controversial electoral bill passed by the Nigerian Senate and House of Representatives was a missed opportunity to redress identified errors in the bill.

“This presidential assent represents, in our considered view, a missed historic opportunity to correct structural loopholes that we and other critical stakeholders had earlier identified in the amendment adopted by the House of Representatives of Nigeria and the Senate of Nigeria,” the statement said.

Stating its contention with the signed electoral act, the group lamented about a clause which permitted a presiding officer at a polling unit to rely on Form EC8A as the primary source for result collation where electronic transmission of results is considered impossible due to network failure.

“Our objection was never to the acknowledgment of technological limitations in remote areas; rather, it was to the dangerous absence of a transparent, objective, and independently verifiable framework for determining when a network failure has genuinely occurred,” CNPP stated.

Faulting the clause, the group noted that the newly signed law would create “an exploitable loophole”, which capable of undermining the integrity of the electoral process, as well as weaken the progress in technology usage introduced in the recent electoral reforms.

“By leaving the determination of network failure substantially at the discretion of individual polling unit officials, the newly signed law creates an exploitable loophole capable of undermining the integrity of the electoral process,” the group said

“Modern electoral governance must be anchored on measurable, auditable, and tamper-proof procedures. Unfortunately, the amendment weakens the technological safeguards painstakingly introduced in recent electoral reforms,” it added.

CNPP stated that “the reintroduction of incident form-style procedures without strict regulatory and verification safeguards risks reversing those gains and reopening vulnerabilities that electoral reforms sought to close.”

The group stressed that the clause could have potential social and security implications such as distrust, confrontation, apathy and the likely breakdown of law and order, particularly between voters and the presiding officer at polling booths. 

“Such contradictions may expose officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to avoidable suspicion and hostility, thereby jeopardising both the credibility of the electoral process and the personal safety of electoral personnel,” the group noted.

 “The current legal framework, as amended, risks fueling post-election litigations, public protests, and erosion of voter confidence — developments that could threaten national democratic stability,” CNPP stated.

The parties faulted Mr Tinubu, as well as lawmakers at the National Assembly for not exercising foresights and sensitivity to the legitimate democratic concerns raised by stakeholders across the country.

The group, however, called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to develop stringent and technology-driven implementation guidelines in a bid to resolve potential risks in the amendment.  

“The CNPP therefore calls on INEC and all relevant institutions to urgently develop stringent, technology-driven implementation guidelines that will mitigate the risks inherent in this amendment,” the statement said.

The group also called on the electoral commission to establish “objective, real-time network verification protocols integrated with national telecommunications infrastructure, mandatory multi-layer authentication and timestamp safeguards” before manual collation of election results can be activated at any voting centre.

“We strongly urge the establishment of objective, real-time network verification protocols integrated with national telecommunications infrastructure, mandatory multi-layer authentication and timestamp safeguards before any manual collation can be activated, enforceable accountability measures against false declarations of network failure, and transparent reporting systems accessible to political parties and accredited observers,” the group noted.