'APC Ole' - Lawmakers Walk out Over new Electoral Clause (Video)
Last update: February 17, 2026
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Opposition lawmakers staged a walkout to protest a new Electoral Act clause...
Opposition members of the House of Representatives on Tuesday staged a walkout from the Green Chamber in protest against a new clause in the Electoral Act adopted by the lower chamber of the National Assembly.
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Led by Minority Leader Kingsley Chinda, the lawmakers rejected the provision, describing it as anti-people.
Earlier, the House had agreed to provide for both real-time electronic transmission and manual transmission of election results following heated deliberations on the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2025 ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The decision sparked outrage among opposition lawmakers, who accused the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of manipulating the process and imposing manual transmission on Nigerians.
In protest, the lawmakers stormed out of the plenary session, chanting “APC ole, APC ole,” with “ole” being a Yoruba word for thief.
After leaving the chamber, the minority caucus proceeded to the House of Representatives Media Centre to formally address journalists.
CBI News reports that Chinda said the opposition could not support any clause that, in their view, creates room for election result manipulation.
“Our position is that elections shall and should be transmitted electronically,” he declared. “We are against any clause that would give room for micro-manipulation, rigging, or leeway for any untoward act.”
He explained that the minority had proposed that in cases of conflict between manually collated Form EC8A results and electronically transmitted results, the electronic version should prevail, but their position was rejected.
“Those positions were torn down,” he said.
“And we are aware that they were torn down by members of the APC, not on grounds of patriotism, but on grounds of political party affiliation.”
Chinda described the walkout as a deliberate move to register their objection before Nigerians.
“For us, after what happened on the floor, we felt it was better to register our position with Nigeria, which is the court of public opinion. So we had to leave the plenary. We had to walk out to address you,” he stated.
On Clause 84, which addresses primary elections and candidate selection methods, Chinda maintained that the minority caucus believes such decisions should remain the internal affair of political parties.
“Our position remains that the method of selection of candidates should be an internal party affair. Political parties should be allowed to determine what method they want to adopt in selecting candidates that will represent them,” he said.
He added that imposing a specific mode of primaries would amount to undue interference in party administration.
“We support that parties should be allowed to adopt the method best suited for them, direct primaries, indirect primaries, or consensus primaries,” he said.
