The Harbingerngr News

*Reduces election notice from 360 to 180 days *LP, PDP, George, Okorie slam Senate over results transmission *We retained old law, didn’t reject electronic transmission – Akpabio  *INEC vows to sanitise voters register, says dead men don’t vot  *Declares readiness for Feb 21 Abuja council, Rivers, Kano bye-elections *Senate blocking real-time results to protect incumbents — Atiku AFTER pressure from the media and other stakeholders, the Senate,has passed the Electoral Act Amendment Bill but rejected electronic transmission of results, an item that some stakeholders consider critical for free and fair elections in 2027. The Senate passed the Electoral Act 2022 (Repeal and Re-enactment) Amendment Bill 2026 after the third reading. It rejected a proposed amendment to Clause 60, Subsection 3, of the bill, which sought to make the electronic transmission of election results mandatory. But Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, said in a swift reaction that the Senate retained transmis...

By Olu Fasan BY the end of this year, or even earlier, the All Progressives Congress, APC, Nigeria’s ruling party, may control 30 or more of Nigeria’s 36 state governors. Currently, the party has 29 state governors in its fold. Of these 29, only 21 are APC governors by election, the others are APC governors by defection. The gale of defections has swept away eight of the 12 governors of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and deprived the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, of its only governor. The president, Bola Tinubu, is fully hands-on in his determination to lure and co-opt virtually all opposition governors into his party ahead of his re-election bid in 2027.  But does anyone, not least the president himself, care about the irreparable damage that the whirlwind of defections is inflicting on Nigeria’s party system and its electoral or representative democracy? Any representative democracy derives its legitimacy from the explicit consent of the governed, and, thus...