Low voter turnout recorded in Saturday’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Area Council elections is linked to the newly signed Electoral Act 2026, former presidential candidate Omoyele Sowore said on Saturday.
Speaking at 001 Polling Unit, LEA Primary School, Kabusa in the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), Sowore, candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the 2023 polls, said many Nigerians have lost trust in the electoral system following the swift signing of the new law by President Bola Tinubu.
“What we have discovered is that more and more of our people are no longer voting, and I think it was made adverse by the newly signed electoral law, which doesn’t give transparency to the oxygen it needs because democracy needs one oxygen, that’s trust,” Sowore said.
He said the effect of low confidence was visible early in the elections.
“The moment trust is lost, people stay at home because there is nothing more voluntary than voting — you take your money, you take your time, and if you feel like the thing is not going to produce the results you want, you don’t leave your house.”
Sowore said activists had warned the National Assembly about possible apathy if the bill failed to deliver meaningful electoral transparency.
“If you want people to have faith in democracy, you must give them what they ask for, and that is democracy,” he said.
Reports from polling units across the FCT showed turnout was indeed low in places like AMAC and Kubwa early on Saturday, with only a handful of voters casting ballots even hours after voting began.
The elections come amid debate over the new Electoral Act’s provisions on electronic transmission of results — a contentious issue among civil society groups that some say undermines confidence in the system.
