{"id":194275,"date":"2026-02-10T09:54:47","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T08:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/electoral-act-akpabios-senate-caught-cheating-nigerians"},"modified":"2026-02-10T11:03:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T10:03:26","slug":"electoral-act-akpabios-senate-caught-cheating-nigerians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electoral-act-akpabios-senate-caught-cheating-nigerians","title":{"rendered":"Electoral Act Akpabio&#8217;s Senate Caught Cheating Nigerians"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>An Islamic scholar and political activist, Dr Usman Bugaje, has accused the Senate leadership under Senate President Godswill Akpabio of repeatedly undermining Nigeria\u2019s democratic process, alleging a pattern of deception and poor legislative conduct.<\/p>\n<p>Bugaje made the remarks on Tuesday while speaking on Arise Television\u2019s Morning Show, where he defended the ongoing move to amend the Electoral Act to provide clarity following a Supreme Court ruling.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, the amendment has become necessary to ensure transparency in elections, particularly through the mandatory electronic transmission of results in real time.<\/p>\n<p>Bugaje noted that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had already recommended mandatory real-time transmission of results, a position he said had been adopted by the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n<p>He, however, accused the Senate of resisting the move.<\/p>\n<p>He further accused the Senate of previous legislative failures, citing alleged irregularities in tax legislation and budgetary processes, which he said had resulted in confusion over multiple budgets and hampered economic planning.<\/p>\n<p>He described the Senate leadership as a major challenge to governance in the country and questioned its effectiveness, calling for greater scrutiny of its actions.<\/p>\n<p>Bugaje said: \u201cYou see, this is precisely because of that ruling of the Supreme Court, it has become necessary for us to now go back and amend the law for clarity, accuracy and precision, so that everybody will be clear.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe whole idea is to do a transparent election, and the best way to is to make sure that the results are available electronically, immediately, that\u2019s real time, so that everybody can see exactly where the votes are.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cINEC has gone as far as saying that there should be mandatory transmission of results in real time. The House of Reps have done exactly that, while the Senate is always caught cheating or deceiving people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is one thing that we really have to address after this amendment. This is not the first time that Senate is found napping or is caught cheating in terms of, you know, their basic function of law making. They have done that, like we just mentioned, with the tax law.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey have done that with with padding of budgets, and as a result of the mess they have done, we have now nearly three budgets, none of which is rarely functional. You don\u2019t know where really you are.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo businesses cannot plan because they don\u2019t know which budget is going to be implemented, which one is going to be funded.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd so the Senate leadership, at least, is no is now being the biggest problem you know of this country, and we need to begin to ask of what use are these leadership.<\/p>\n<p>What kind of irresponsible behavior is this?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo we\u2019ll have to take that up after we have gone through the amendment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I think there is a groundswell of opinion across the country, even with their fellow legislators in the House, that this mandatory transmission in real time is what everybody wants, and that\u2019s what should actually be done. And Nigerians are not ready for anything less.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. An Islamic scholar and political activist, Dr Usman Bugaje, has accused the Senate leadership under Senate President Godswill Akpabio of repeatedly undermining Nigeria\u2019s democratic process, alleging a pattern of deception and poor legislative conduct. Bugaje made the remarks on Tuesday while speaking on Arise Television\u2019s Morning Show, where he defended the ongoing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":194274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[254],"class_list":["post-194275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-nigeria"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Electoral Act Akpabio&#039;s Senate Caught Cheating Nigerians - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An Islamic scholar and political activist, Dr Usman Bugaje, has accused the Senate leadership under Senate President God ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electoral-act-akpabios-senate-caught-cheating-nigerians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Electoral Act Akpabio&#039;s Senate Caught Cheating Nigerians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An Islamic scholar and political activist, Dr Usman Bugaje, has accused the Senate leadership under Senate President God ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electoral-act-akpabios-senate-caught-cheating-nigerians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-02-10T08:54:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-10T10:03:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/02\/sm_1770717591.326351.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"719\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electoral-act-akpabios-senate-caught-cheating-nigerians#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electoral-act-akpabios-senate-caught-cheating-nigerians\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Electoral Act Akpabio&#8217;s Senate Caught Cheating Nigerians\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-10T08:54:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-10T10:03:26+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electoral-act-akpabios-senate-caught-cheating-nigerians\"},\"wordCount\":537,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electoral-act-akpabios-senate-caught-cheating-nigerians#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/02\/sm_1770717591.326351.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Nigeria\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electoral-act-akpabios-senate-caught-cheating-nigerians#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electoral-act-akpabios-senate-caught-cheating-nigerians\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/electoral-act-akpabios-senate-caught-cheating-nigerians\",\"name\":\"Electoral Act Akpabio's Senate Caught Cheating Nigerians - 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