On Wednesday, February 18, 2026 President Bola Tinubu enthusiastically signed the Electoral Act 2026 (Amendment) Bill barely 24 hours after it was passed by the National Assembly.
Speaking after signing the bill into law, Tinubu said, “The essence of democracy is to have very solid brainstorming discussions committed to national development and nation building, the stability of the nation.”
The president noted that beyond the historical significance of the legislation, the priority is ensuring that the electoral process is managed in a way that prevents confusion or disenfranchisement.
“What is crucial is the fact that you manage the process to the extent there will be no confusion, no disenfranchisement of Nigerians; and we are all going to see democracy flourish,” he said.
But going by the outcome of the FCT Area Council elections that took place on February 21, 2026, there is little cheer going by the whole process from logistics, security, results collation, and executive overreach by the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike.
By its own admission, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, said that only 45% of polling units were opened at 8:30am, while others opened from 10am upwards.
This is not good enough for the FCT that is largely motorable and owing to the massive logistics deployment the commission said it had carried out.
Further, the over 22, 000 security deployment shows that the elections was overly policed and perhaps served as disincentive to voters given the overwhelming voter apathy that trailed the process.
With only 239,210 voters voting, representing approximately 15% of the 1,680,315 total registered voters in the FCT, it demonstrates that the trust quotient of Nigerians in their electoral process is further depreciating and this should worry every genuine lover of democracy.
It is galling that in the Abuja Municipal Area Council, only 7.5% of the over 837,338 registered voters voted in the polls.
Civil society election observers have voiced their worry over the overall conduct of the polls from the electoral commission to the overbearing influence of Minister Wike.
It is saddening to note that vote buying and selling has come to stay because the relevant security agencies have failed to arraign those caught previously undermining democracy.
As usual, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, said 20 suspected vote buyers were arrested by its operatives with huge sums of cash.
A statement by Dele Oyewale, Head, Media & Publicity of the commission, on Sunday said the suspects were arrested across the FCT for offences ranging from vote buying, vote selling to obstruction of officers to the tune of N17, 218, 700. (Seventeen Million, Two Hundred and Eighteen Thousand, Seven Hundred Naira only).
One of the suspects was arrested with a sum of N13,500,000 (Thirteen Million, Five Hundred Thousand Naira) in a car parked beside a polling booth in the Kwali local government area.
Will these people be actually prosecuted or will they be left off the hook when it shows they are members of the ruling APC? This question is germane as videos have surfaced of APC operatives backed by the police tear gassing and aiding in electoral malfeasance.
In other eyewitness accounts, security operatives stood by as agents of the ruling party engaged in vote buying.
Also, the INEC needs to come clean on why there was downtime for several hours in the uploading of real time results in the elections.
This newspaper states that there is little to celebrate in the outcome of the FCT polls. While it is permissible for the ruling party to celebrate its win, or vote capture, the opposition must see this as a wake up call to galvanise Nigerians to participate in the process and defend their votes.
To do otherwise is to sound the death knell for democracy in Nigeria and this will have consequences far beyond the borders of the country.
