The Senate will hold an emergency plenary session on Tuesday, amid escalating public outcry over its recent controversial decision on the 2022 Electoral Act Amendment Bill, 2025.
The Clerk of the Senate, Emmanuel Odo, made the announcement in a statement he signed and forwarded to journalists on Sunday.
The statement reads: “The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, has directed the reconvening of plenary for an emergency sitting on Tuesday, February 10th, 2026″.
According to the statement, the emergency session will commence at 12 noon in the Senate Chambers, requesting all Senators to be in attendance.
The proposed emergency session is likely going to be used to address controversies generated in the polity by the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, passed on February 4 by the Senate.
It’s pertinent to note that the Senate has been in the eye of the storm for rejecting a recommendation in the amendment to Clause 60(3) of the Act, which sought to make the real-time electronic transmission of election results mandatory.
Instead, the Senate retained the existing provision, which provides for the discretionary “transfer” of results after votes are counted and publicly announced at polling units.
The rejected clause would have required presiding officers at polling units to electronically transmit results directly to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s Result Viewing (IReV) portal.
Nigerians are of the opinion that this would have eliminated or drastically reduced the chances of manipulating the election results by the INEC officials, particularly the presiding and returning officers.
Under the retained provision, the presiding officer is required to count votes at the polling unit, record the scores on prescribed forms, announce the results publicly, and transmit the results electronically to the appropriate collation centre as directed by the Commission.
However, it has been observed that this clause is ambiguous and subject to manipulation in the law courts, a development that cropped up after the 2023 general elections when litigations were made for adjudications by dissatisfied politicians.
In October 2023, for instance, the Supreme Court of Nigeria ruled that the electronic transmission of election results was not mandatory under the Electoral Act 2022.
The Court affirmed that the Independent National Electoral Commission has the legal authority and discretion to determine the specific mode for transmitting and collating election results.
The apex court clarified that the INEC Result Viewing portal was not a collation system and was intended only for public viewing, and therefore ruled that failure or unavailability of results on IReV did not invalidate an election outcome or halt the manual collation process.
The ruling emphasized that the Electoral Act 2022 did not explicitly mandate “electronic transmission” only; rather, it allows INEC to prescribe any manner it deems fit, which may include manual or electronic methods.
So, the decision of the Senate has triggered strong reactions from civil society organisations and opposition figures, who described the move as a setback for Nigeria’s democratic development.
However, Senate President Godswill Akpabio has defended the Chamber’s position, insisting during a public engagement that the Senate did not reject electronic transmission of results and declaring that the Legislature would not be intimidated.
The scheduled emergency session is expected to revisit the matter and perhaps end public agitations by doing the will of the people.
