It is generally agreed that the major problem hampering Nigeria’s development revolves around having the right leadership in place that can inspire patriotic followership for an unfolding of a progressive nation-building process. Many are of the opinion that Nigeria is not in dearth supply of patriots that can make up a credible leadership stock. The problem has been identified to be a leadership emergence process rooted in opaque incredulity and skewed towards entrenched corruption, deeply drawn out compromises and irregularities. It then becomes understandable why a clearly spelt out reformative Electoral Act becomes imperative in providing the much needed guidelines on the procedure and the due process for electoral conduct. This is expected to lead to a process of emergence of leadership that can truly trace its ascendancy to the will of the people, duly expressed through the ballot box, symbol of democratic inviolability.
This has become the more compelling following the negative experiences of 2023 general election marred by glitches, hitches, violence, massive vote buying, process hijack and other aberrations to established electoral norms and age long democratic principles. Nigerians have therefore had to wait with apprehension for a new Electoral Act which was eventually passed last week Wednesday but with a snag of controversy and heated contention as it has to do with electronic transmission of results.
After pressure from the media and other stakeholders, the Senate last Wednesday passed the Electoral Act Amendment Bill but rejected electronic transmission of results, an item that Nigerians consider critical for free and fair elections in 2027. This has given room for political observers to raise concerns as to whether the National Assembly is not already laying the foundation for electoral fraud that will subvert the whole essence of democracy.
It became shocking to many Nigerians that the Senate passed the Electoral Act 2022 (Repeal and Re-enactment) Amendment Bill 2026 but rejected a proposed amendment to Clause 60, Subsection 3, of the bill, which sought to make the electronic transmission of election results mandatory. Given the experiences in our nascent democracy, this was key to the envisaged restoration of public confidence in the nation’s electoral process.
The rejected provision was designed to require presiding officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to electronically transmit results from each polling unit to the IReV portal in real time, after the prescribed Form EC8A had been signed and stamped by the presiding officer and counter-signed by candidates’ agents. This is in line with the earnest desire of Nigerians.
What the Senate however adopted is the existing provision of the Electoral Act, which states that ‘the presiding officer shall transfer the results, including the total number of accredited voters and the results of the ballot, in a manner as prescribed by the Commission’. This is clearly a resort to needless ambiguity and institutional ambivalence that will give room for manipulation and electoral malfeasance.
Nigerians, especially those of the opposition parties have risen to roundly condemn the position of the National Assembly on the electronic transmission of results of votes cast. The African Democratic Congress (ADC) did not mince words in its condemnation of the Senate over its rejection of key electoral reform provisions, alleging that the move was aimed at undermining the credibility of future elections and entrenching electoral malpractice.
The party said the Senate’s decision to reject the electronic transmission of election results, alongside other proposed reforms, amounted to a renewed plan by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to manipulate the electoral process. It remains indeed a puzzle why an average Nigerian politician will desire the mandate of the people but will rather want to seize it through the backdoor instead of securing it through the ballot box in a free and fair platform. This translates to affront on democracy.
Nigeria’s electoral laws urgently require decisive, far-reaching reforms that will guarantee credibility and public confidence. Senate’s rejection of electronic transmission of results therefore is suggestive of a grand conspiracy to have the expressed will of the people shortchanged. This has the inclination towards increased voter apathy as voters will not want to spend time to participate in a process whose eventual outcome will not reflect the expressed will of the people. One question that bothers the minds of many is what then is democracy if it does not take into account the will of the people.
The ruling party is said to have exploited its numerical advantage in the Senate to alter the electoral law to its advantage but to the crippling of democracy and muting of the peoples’ voice.
Democracy becomes weak and mortgaged when the will of a few is used to subterfuge that of the majority. Nigerians therefore need to be vigilant to ensure that current democratic processes are not hijacked to the detriment of the people. Democracy should grow as its principles and tenets get deeper and become internalized as a socio-cultural pattern. Laws that therefore appear to be retrogressive in purpose, design, intent and application should therefore be discouraged if not out rightly discountenanced.
Language and Constitution scholars have argued that at best, what the Senate did was to resort to ambiguity and institutional ambivalence which is neither a noble nor progressive way to take at this stage in our journey through the democratic highway.
If Nigerians are calling for the real-time electronic upload of election results at polling units and the Senate is expected to represent the interest of Nigerians, why can’t it be so expressly stated in the Electoral Act.
As it now stands the Senate has chosen to retain the INEC 2022 Act Section 60, subsection 5, which actually became infamous for the loophole that it provided for the electoral moderator not to accord Nigerians the basis to be trusted.
Arising from the experience of 2023 general elections, the failure to upload results electronically has become the foundation for widespread suspicion and resort to legal technicalities that end up weakening transparency.
When transparency is weakened, apathy will assume a wider space in the polity. In 2023 less than 35% of the registered voters came out to vote. The indicators are getting stronger by the day that even this figure will drop come 2027. Not many Nigerians will want to be used to endorse a process fraught with errors with the end result already known from the beginning.
Democracy belongs to the people. So if the people are insisting that the presiding officer shall electronically transmit the results from each polling unit to the INEC results viewing portal, IREV, in real time, so be it.
The decision by the lawmakers to retain provisions from the 2022 Act allowing results to be transmitted ‘in a manner as prescribed by the Commission’, without an explicit legal mandate for real-time uploads is obviously not a healthy one for electoral credibility and the sustainability of a people based democracy.
Nigeria’s electoral system should not be allowed to thrive in confusion and contradiction. Democracy remains the best form of government only when it is people based, not hijacked by self-perpetuating political elites.
