Op-Ed

PERSPECTIVE: Shenanigans In A Bill Making

ByGuest Writer

PublishedMarch 13, 2026

By Smolette Adetoyese Shittu-Alamu

Today, my intention is to write on three issues and at three levels. Please come along with me one after the other. Last Wednesday was 18th of February. It marked the day President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed the amended new electoral bill 2026, into an Act of Parliament. No longer is the document a bill but a law in Nigeria. It became a law from that Wednesday.

Some twenty-four hours earlier that day, the 17th some of the legislators from the opposition parties had vehemently opposed and rejected it as a new introduction in the Green Chamber of our National Assebley. Some how, it still managed to be passed as a bill in the Green Chamber against the wishes of the generality of Nigerians.

For two days in the week preceding this one that is about to end,, Rights Activists, Civil Societies, defenders of democracy et al, had thronged the National Assembly premises in Abuja to decry the Senate position on the bill which gave a proviso to the transmission of the election results to the irev portal of the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, “in real time” as Nigerian’s wanted it.

We may recall that late last year, just before it went on Christmas and New Year break, the House of Reps had done a deal for themselves and for their countrymen. Because Nigerians wanted it so, they applauded them for a good job done. The House had rightly passed the bill in their chamber with the electronic transmission of all election results to INEC irev portal without any delay and without any proviso.

The lower Legislative Chamber had won the admiration of the generality of Nigerians. The upper Legislative Chamber was expected to make Nigerians know where they stood on the matter even long before now. But they did not. Instead they went on a long break that started in December last year and did not end until 27th of January 2026.

Nigerians had by that time started to “smell rat”in the business of law-making. Their suspicion was further escalated when even after the Senators had resumed plenary, the amendments needed to be carried out on the electoral reform bill was still not being done by the senators. Yet time was running out. There was need to act fast, knowing that whatever differences the Senate came up with in their consideration would still be looked at by a Harmonisation Committee of the two houses before whatever they both arrived at would be sent to the president for assent to become law.

However, what happened in the Green Chamber on Tuesday 17th of February did not allow for any more harmonisation of positions to take place at all. This was because the lower House managed to recind the collective decision they had taken before going on break late last year which Nigerians had sincerely applauded. In a last minute change of mind on 17th February this year, the House chose in the end, what majority of Nigerians did not like The leadership of the House strategically introduced politics into what all along had been a bi-partisan position they had held in the interest of democratic principles. Before the Speaker’s gavel could go the House became rowdy and rancorous.

The All Progressive Congress strategically utilised the majority they have in the lower chamber to call for a divide. What had all along been seen in the House as a truly bi-partisan legislative matter suddenly became uncomfortably partisan.

The decision of the House leadership to allow members to vote along party lines, won the day for the ruling party, the APC. Consequently, the majority had their way as was expected, while the minority only had their traditional say. That ‘say’ the minority had led into the chanting of “APC Ole, APC Ole” that rent the air as the opposition bloc filed out of the green chamber.

If one translates the chant “APC Ole, APC Ole” from Yoruba into English, the opposition members of the House were screaming foul in fact, murder of what they felt was a brazen day-light robbery.

The implication of the House going the way the Senate had gone, meant that there was no need for any harmonisation to take place again. The House had yielded itself to the Senate position at plenary. The leadership of the two legislative chambarr had to “with immediate effect and alacrity” take their “victory buty” to the Villa for a quick signing of it into law. That was a show of political smartness. The local Yoruba expression that one does not have to stay too long in a bush toilet called “shalanga” is the reason the president signed the new bill into law and made it an Act of Parliament without any delay. Delays could be very dangerous. If one stays too long in a bush toilet, different flies will hover all over the man easing himself and that could be dangerous as we all do know. Big flies do sting, you know!

There is a Yoruba word for the little creature called water-bug. It is called “iromi”. In the saying of the Yoruba people, whenever the water bug or iromi dances on top of a body of water, be it in a pool, river or stream, the drummer whose tunes the iromi/water bug is dancing to, is always very close by. In fact it is somewhere under the body of water. One may only be fascinated by the water bug’s rythmic dance steps that one may not have bothered to find out where the music it is dancing to comes from. Metaphorically, the Villa, which is the hallowed seat of Nigeria’s political power must have been undeniably where the water bug/ iromi drummer was all along when the shenanigans took place on the floor of the green Chamber.

That is where we could easily and readily trace to, the politics of contextualization that we have seen so far. The “City Boy drummer” must have heard the opposition’s chantings of ‘APC Ole! APC Ole! “ very clearly in the Villa. I am sure the chantings didn’t bothered him at all. Why? He knew too well that the same mouths they used to chant “ APC Ole APC Ole”, is the same they will use to sing while smiling ‘On your mandate we shall stand”, another time, not too distant from now. This is how politics is played in Nigeria, our beloved country, one nation very exceptional a country in that it can readily re-define, what law is really. Yes, laws are laws! They are always absolute and are never given provisos as our law makers have just done in Abuja, the city of our collective hope.

The Biblical or even Koranic law instructs man not to kill! It is an absolute law! You see, it does not give a proviso that can make a man decide to kill.

Similarly, Nigeria is a country that drives on the right. That is the law. It does not instruct any driver on Nigerian roads to drive left at any time, even if there is a terrible road block ahead. There is no proviso telling the driver when he can drive left because that is the law. It is absolute.

But somehow, in our new Electoral Amendment Act of 2026, we have given a proviso that can make politicians in their desperation, break the law by quoting that proviso, in support of their shenanigans.

Where will it take us to? January 2027 will reveal that and that moment is only ten months from now.

We shall all be around to witness this. The more you look, the less you see proviso. None of us will die before that time, l honestly pray.

A CO-INCIDENCE OR PROVIDENCE?

On the same Wednesday, the 18th of February, Muslims the world over began the month of Ramadan, the one month of a fasting period that is one of the 5 pillars of the religion. On the same day 18th February, Christians throughout the world also marked Ash Wednesday, which is the beginning of the 40-day fasting period for them. It is called Lent or the Lenten season.

These two most popular religions in the world have thus had their fasting periods in year 2026, started on the same day and date; namely 18th of February. This is very remarkable. It is a coincidence that can better be described as Providential. We call it providential because even though this may have happened before in centuries behind us, it is the first time such a coincidence would happen in the life time of this generation.

This fact must be put into context. Ramadan as the 9th month in the Islamic calendar, is one that Muslims consider is for spiritual renewal and rejuvenation. It is one month of a training ground for men and women who practice the religion to demonstrate how close they could be to Allah the most Merciful and the most Benevolent.

The Lenten season in Christendom is a season that lasts 40 days. It begins with Ash Wednesday and ends on Easter (Sunday). It is a period Christian faithful try to do what Jesus Christ did during his earthly ministry here on earth. The Holy Bible teaches that after he had been baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus Christ had gone into the wilderness and had fasted and prayed for forty days and nights ostensibly to prepare himself for the great task ahead of him and for which God the father had sent him to this world.

In the wilderness experience Jesus had been tested severally and had resisted the devil, the arch enemy of man in so many ways. The 40 days fasting and prayer period for Christians is a time to bring them closer to God and in service to him and also their fellow men. Christian faithful are expected to rent their hearts and not the garments they wear.

Lent is a period for Christians to be very introspective, do what makes God happy and be their brothers keeper. It is a time for them to be kind and better Christians and also be involved in practices that God enjoins them to do as true followers of Christ their Master. For both religions of Islam and Christianity the two fasting periods which in the year 2026 started on the same day, speak to the essence of religious harmony and tolerance for the whole world, and we Nigerians in particular.

It is not sufficient for Christians and Muslims to show religious piety in their daily lives. Nor is it necessary for them to be sentimental nor theoretical about their religions. What we need is the demonstration of charity and love by faithful of the two religions in order to make the world a happy place for us all.

Here in our country, Nigeria, Christians and Muslims alike, must show love to their neighbours for the development of the entire society. We must allow the teachings of the two religions we do believe in to challenge our living styles and also standards as we hope for the harmony that has kept eluding us as a nation and as a people.

The 18th of February “coincidence” which should be seen more as a rather providential date, must inspire the two religious teachings in their relationship with one another. It is not for nothing that God Almighty has put us together in one country called Nigeria. There is a reason for that. The beginning of this year Ramadan fast and Lenten season on the same day must tell us all one thing: God is Great and Unlimited. On the other hand, we humans are limited in both time and space and even in thinking. May He use this concurrence of the two seasons to teach us useful lessons in love and heal our land.

Smolette Adetoyese Shittu-Alamu sent the piece from Osogbo, Osun State.

The opinions expressed in this publication are solely those of the author. It does not represent the editorial position or opinion of OSUN DEFENDER.