Nigerian youth urge the National Assembly to pass election-related bills, writes HASSAN MATHIAS KABULU
Every election cycle, Nigerians look up to the National Assembly, State Houses of Assembly and the President to amend the Constitution, Electoral Act and other election-related laws, to improve the quality of our elections. Declining electoral integrity has remained a major concern for Nigerians, especially the youth. Nigerians always expect the process of amending our legal framework to strengthen our electoral process to be quick and seamless, but almost always experience the opposite. The constitutional and electoral reform process sometimes begins late, experiences significant and avoidable delays, and are only concluded when the next election is already around the corner.
Then, after the polls, we return to the same conversation as if democracy is a wheel we keep pushing uphill only to watch it roll back. The 10th Senate and House of Representatives both inaugurated their Constitutional Review Committees in February 2024, seven clear months after their proclamation in June 2023. Setting up these committees within three months may have shown a greater sense of purpose. In 2024, the Senate and House Constitutional Review Committees released timelines for their engagements, including schedules for public hearings to receive input from the Nigerian public. The Senate Constitutional review committees ended up holding their public meeting in July 2025, nine months late from their original schedule of September 2024. The House also held theirs in July 2025, eight months late from their original schedule of October 2024. Our campaign, the Youth-Electoral Reform Project (YERP-Naija), attended all 19 regional and national public hearings held by the Senate and House Constitutional Review Committees and commend both legislative houses for the open and frank discussions held. Timing however, seems to be a bottleneck once again, as a vote on the Constitutional Review Bills discussed during those public hearings is not in sight, three and a half months after those public hearings.
According to their original calendars, the Senate planned to vote on the bills between April and May, 2025, while the House scheduled their vote for April 2025. Information went out that perhaps these votes would take place in October, but they did not. Being a process to amend the constitution, the bills will have to be transmitted to the 36 states’ Houses of Assembly for concurrence by the National Assembly, after they pass them, in line with Chapter 1, section 9 of the Constitution. Both chambers of the National Assembly had planned to transmit constitutional reform bills to the State Houses of Assembly for concurrence between May and August 2025. There has been no new communication or updates on when all of these processes that have not been implemented will happen. We cannot keep repeating these delays as a people. Democracy doesn’t thrive on improvisation or last-minute actions; it thrives on clarity, consistency, and sincerity of purpose. If lawmakers do not fast-track these reforms, the 2027 electoral process will be a replica of the 2019 and 2023 process; when we were unable to create awareness about, and implement the full intent of the amended laws.
We have seen this before. In 2018, then-President Muhammadu Buhari withheld assent to the Electoral Amendment Bill multiple times, citing the proximity to the 2019 elections. The delay led to confusion. Political parties conducted primaries without much needed clarity in the environment; court cases multiplied; and INEC was left to organize a major election under outdated legal provisions, due to the President’s refusal to sign the new law.
Nigerian youth urge the National Assembly to rescue the constitutional and electoral reform processes by passing election-related bills before the end of 2025, and transmit the same to the State Houses of Assembly for concurrence. We are gradually approaching the timelines when international proposals on the early completion of electoral reform processes will apply to us. International protocols, including some from the African Union and ECOWAS, state that late amendment of election legal framework undermines the credibility of elections. Enough of the delays. When electoral reform is late, everyone pays the price, from voters to observers, parties to candidates. The ordinary Nigerian, especially young people, who queue under the sun to vote deserve more than legal uncertainty and technical half-measures. History is already watching. The question is whether our leaders will make history or repeat it. When reforms come late, democracy pays the price.
But when they come on time, democracy breathes. The YERP-Naija campaign urges all young people to continue to reach out to their elected representatives, to pass all electoral reform bills before the end of 2025. We call on Nigerian youth, civil society groups and professional groups to add their voices to public calls for far-reaching electoral reform through traditional and social media engagements.
Kabulu is Member, Youth Electoral Reform Project (YERP-Naija), North-East Chapter
