Any Amendment To Electoral Act 2026 Must Come After 2027 Elections – Senator Bamidele

Senate Leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, has ruled out any amendment to the 2026 Electoral Act before the conduct of the 2027 general elections in Nigeria.

Bamidele, in an interview with ThisDay, during which he spoke about matters affecting the 10th National Assembly and other pressing national issues, said amending the act just months before a major election can cause further distrust and confusion in the polity.

The Ekiti lawmaker said some of his colleagues had been advocating for fresh amendments to the Electoral Act following some court rulings, but as leader of the Senate, he refused to endorse such moves.

He said there is already massive pressure on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from different stakeholders ahead of the 2027 elections and no amendment to the 2026 Electoral Act should be made until after the elections have been concluded.

“I’ll be frank. I once heard a former Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mike Ighini, analyse the Electoral Act 2026. Some points he made were good, but some of his conclusions showed a total lack of understanding of the legislative intent of some of the provisions he was criticising.

“That’s part of the beauty of our democratic system and the principle of separation of powers. As the legislature, we make the law. The President shall assent to a law or withhold assent. The law is interpreted and its validity determined by the judiciary. If the courts have ruled that some parts of the INEC Guidelines for Election are void. “So be it. That is the way the system is supposed to function, within the framework of competent judicial authority.

“When some of my colleagues suggested we should go back to the National Assembly and amend the Electoral Act in the immediate aftermath of those rulings, I refused to support that course of action. I was not going to be part of amending an electoral law on the eve of primaries or months to a general election, in the middle of an environment where every party is accusing the other of manipulating the process and INEC is under enormous pressure from all sides, as Leader of the Senate.

“Any amendment of the Electoral Act, 2026 must be after the elections are concluded. It must include the specific caveat that no amendment can be applied retroactively to elections that have already taken place. That is my firm position,” he said in the interview.