Senate Leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, has ruled out an amendment to the 2026 Electoral Act before the conduct of the 2027 general elections in Nigeria.
Speaking during an interview with ThisDay, in which he spoke about matters affecting the 10th National Assembly and other pressing national issues, Bamidele said amending the act just months before a major election can cause further distrust and confusion in the polity.
The Ekiti lawmaker pointed out that some of his colleagues had pushed for fresh amendments to the Electoral Act in the aftermath of certain court rulings, but as the leader of the Senate, he refused to support such moves.
According to him, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), is already under enormous pressure from various stakeholders ahead of the 2027 elections, and any amendment to the 2026 Electoral Act must come after the elections have been concluded.
“I will be candid. I personally listened to a former Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mike Ighini analysing the 2026 Electoral Act on one occasion. While he made some valid points, some of his conclusions demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the legislative intent behind several of the provisions he was criticising..
“That is part of the beauty of our democratic system and the principle of separation of powers. We make the law as the legislature. The President assents to the law or withholds assent. The judiciary interprets the law and determines its validity. If the courts have chosen to strike down certain parts of the INEC Guidelines for Election. So be it. Within the framework of competent judicial authority, that is how the system is supposed to work.
“When some of my colleagues suggested we should return to the National Assembly to amend the Electoral Act in the immediate aftermath of those rulings, I declined to support that course of action. I was not going to participate in amending an electoral law as the Leader of the Senate days before primaries or months before a general election, in the middle of an atmosphere where every party is accusing the other of manipulating the process and INEC is under enormous pressure from all sides.
“Any amendment to the Electoral Act, 2026 must come after the elections have been concluded. It must come with the explicit caveat that no amendment can have retroactive effect on elections already held. That is my firm position,” he declared during the interview.
