Tinubu signed the Electoral Act days before the FCT polls. Here's what Saturday looked like.

Result sheets tampered with. A polling unit with 5,000 registered voters where only 14 were declared eligible. A curfew that blocked civil servants from reaching their polling units. INEC result uploads invisible for hours after polls closed.

That was the FCT Area Council election on Saturday. The first election held after President Tinubu signed the Electoral Act 2026 into law. The key change: electronic result transmission is now optional, not mandatory. Civil society groups demanded he withhold assent. He signed anyway.

Here's what optional means in practice. When transmission is mandatory and digital, manipulating a tally requires falsifying technology. When it's optional, it requires persuading a human collation officer. That's a much older and cheaper skill.

ActionAid's country director documented tampered result sheets and uploads that weren't visible for hours. The AAC reported the 14-eligible-voter polling unit. The PDP has constituted a legal panel to challenge the results. ActionAid, Yiaga Africa, the AAC, and the PDP documented these irregularities independently. This isn't opposition grievance.

The APC won five of six councils.

The real question isn't who won Gwagwalada. It's whether 2027 runs under this same law. If it does, Saturday was a rehearsal.