Public affairs analyst Sumner Sambo has asserted that the presidency failed to conduct adequate due diligence before signing the 2026 Electoral Act.
Papers News reports that Sambo made this known on Friday during an interview on ARISE Television, while reacting to the Federal High Court judgment that nullified key portions of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) electoral timetable ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Sambo said the presidency failed Nigerians, and the INEC queried the rush, stressing that there was enough time for President Bola Tinubu and his team to study and understand the Act.
He said, “The presidency did not pay due diligence before signing the Electoral Act. The president himself was too hasty to sign the Act without having his team to sit down and actually go through it.
“The constitutional provisions are very clear and the provisions of the Electoral act are very clear.
“If you have 120 days before an election by which political parties must submit their candidates, their credentials and all of that, and the election is January 16, why will you now bring the deadline from January 16 instead of September, and then you now bring it down to May?
“First of all, the submission of register and also the holding of campaigns, that’s primaries and all of that. Now if you take a look at this between May, June, July, August, September, we still have 4 month why is INEC rushing.
“Maybe the reason for the rush is because of the failure of the National Assembly to pass the electoral act on time, the electoral act should have been out by December 2025 so that INEC can plan its logistics very well.”
