Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, has explained that the National Assembly deliberately reduced the mandatory election notice period from 360 days to 300 days to prevent the 2027 presidential and National Assembly elections from coinciding with the month of Ramadan.
Speaking to journalists at the State House in Abuja on Wednesday, February 18, 2026, shortly after President Bola Tinubu signed the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill 2026 into law, Abbas described the change as a thoughtful adjustment to promote voter participation and avoid religious sensitivity.
He stated:
“Well, I think the Senate President has said most of the things that we have done yesterday during the amendment exercise. However, there is one area that I’m sure he forgot to mention, and that is the number of days’ notice, which was earlier in the 2022 Act, 360 days.
“Now we have seen the wisdom to reduce it to 300 days, and this will inadvertently translate to holding the presidential and National Assembly elections in January 2027. That will technically avoid conducting elections during the month of Ramadan in 2027, and I think this is another piece of ingenuity that the National Assembly has introduced to avoid voter apathy in the next general election.”
The adjustment means the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will now be required to give at least 300 days’ notice before the 2027 general elections, shifting the likely polling date to January 2027 instead of February or March, when Ramadan is projected to fall that year.
President Tinubu assented to the bill in the presence of the leadership of the National Assembly following its passage by both chambers on Tuesday.
The signing came after intense debates and rowdy sessions in both the House and Senate, particularly over the provision for real-time electronic transmission of election results to INEC’s Result Viewing Portal (IReV), which was ultimately approved with manual collation retained as a fallback in cases of technical failure.
The Speaker’s disclosure highlights one of the less-discussed but significant changes in the amended Electoral Act aimed at balancing electoral logistics with Nigeria’s religious calendar and ensuring broader voter turnout.
