Senate and the Electoral Act Amendment

REUBEN ABATI

The Senate returns from a two-week recess today to attend an emergency plenary session at noon to address the lingering and vexed matter of the ongoing amendment of the Electoral Act 2022. Expectations are high. Opinions are divided as to what may well be the outcome of today’s meeting. Since the return to civilian rule in 1999, Nigerians have been fixated on the subject of how to arrive at the best electoral framework that would guarantee free, fair, and credible elections, and yet before and after every election cycle, this has remained a knotty problem, if not an elusive target. It should not be surprising therefore that the people have found themselves again at the same crossroads. By September 2025, the Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Electoral Matters opted to retain the positive aspects of the existing law of 2022, while adding new provisions. Both committees relied on recommendations from technical experts in civil society groups such as the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC), the Civil Society Situation Room, the European Union Election Observation Mission and others.  By October 2025, public hearings had been held. In November 2025, the House of Representatives passed its amendments to the Electoral Act 2022, awaiting the process to be seen through at the Senate.

By last week, the Senate finally completed the process of receiving and reviewing the submissions of its own Committee on Electoral Matters. It was at this point, with time running out before the next general elections, that the process ran into trouble. First, the Senate Electoral Matters Committee could not present its report because its Chair, Senator Simon Lalong, was absent on the day of the presentation. The Senate then set up an Executive Committee to review the submissions. This was followed by a seven-man ad hoc committee, then a closed Executive session to further scrutinize the amendments, clause by clause. By this time, Nigerians were beginning to smell a rat. It is common knowledge that when Nigerian leaders are up to a certain mischief, the easiest thing they do is to resort to the committee approach, one after the other until the main issue is lost in translation. In the instant case, the proposed fresh provisions in the Senate’s draft amendment were straightforward enough viz: a clause to give INEC the power to transmit election results electronically, tougher penalties for electoral offenders, electronically generated voter identification, the right of prisoners to vote, early voting for groups whose election day duties prevent them from voting, review of the time before election that the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC)  commences the election process and the release of election funds at least one year before polling day.

On Wednesday, February 4, the Senate voted on the various provisions, but it ignited public outrage by voting to retain the ambiguous provision in Clause 60 of the 2022 Electoral Act which leaves the mode of result transmission entirely at the discretion of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).  This has resulted in sheer censure, and the erosion of the integrity of the Senate in the eyes of a skeptical electorate. The Senate leadership has had to explain that it did not remove electronic transmission, and that rather than the phrase “transfer” in Section 60(5) in the extant law, the Senate has now voted for “transmit”. Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe (Abia South) at a press conference attended by members of the Minority Caucus said this was done collectively to ensure clarity, conciseness and lack of ambiguity. His attempt to calm the brewing storm had little effect. What the people heard was that the Senate rejected the more popular request that there should be real-time mandatory electronic transmission of results from polling units to the INEC Election Results Viewing (IReV) portal. The subsequent explanation by the Senate President Godswill Akpabio was that the intention of the lawmakers is to prevent a deluge of litigations before and after the electoral process from communities and stakeholders whose constituencies lack the infrastructure for real time, electronic transmission. Last weekend, Senator Akpabio, at an event, reportedly said that electronic transmission cannot be imposed on places affected by network coverage or insecurity – referring to at least nine states in question. At another event, the INEC Chairman Professor Joash Amupitan cautioned Nigerians against “unnecessary tension over the Senate’s decision,” and urged that the people should wait for the harmonization of the bill by both Chambers. According to him, “INEC is committed to deploying technology…What matters is the technical efficiency of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS)” which he calls “a game changer.” 

Today, the Senate would reconvene, obviously in affirmation of the Senate President’s position that the National Assembly has not yet concluded its work on the Bill, and that there is still the Votes and Proceedings stage, which is exactly the stage at which the Senate reviews its votes and passes the Bill, before presenting it for harmonization at a Joint Conference of the National Assembly. Many Nigerians had felt offended by the Senate President’s boastful remark over the weekend that the Senate “cannot be intimidated” and that the job of the legislature is to do what is right to advance democracy. But now that the Senate has had to recall itself from recess, for an urgent meeting, it is obvious that the Senate is fully aware of the objections to the vote on February 4. It shows that it has heard the various civil society leaders who have advised the National Assembly “not to play with fire”, those who have threatened to #OccupyNASS and who actually have shown up at the National Assembly, even as it rained yesterday, to protest, those who have threatened to embark on mass action like the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) to frustrate the 2027 elections before, during and after, or call for a general boycott of the elections if the Senate fails to add the phrase “real time”. The problem is the phrase “real time” and the objections stem from a fundamental lack of trust in state institutions – be it the National Assembly or INEC. Most Nigerians, especially the opposition party leaders, believe that without real time electronic transmission, they do not stand a chance, and that the election would have been rigged even before it took place. They see this as a blow to democracy. Professional bodies like the Nigerian Bar Association have also called for real-time electronic transmission of results.  This real time furore has taken attention away from other details in the amendments which may still come to light sooner than later. This may well be the beginning of a very long conversation.

But given the present urgency, the Senate in convening today must refrain from annoying the people further by setting up yet another committee to look into the matter. It should seek to meet the people half-way by expressly stating that electronic transmission will be allowed, and reassure the people that it has nothing against the use of technology. It also owes the people further clarifications as to the key contents of the bill. Given our circumstances however, it would seem that a hybrid formula would be the best option. Real time transmission of results is the norm in countries where technology is already advanced, and there are electronic systems in place that are fast, transparent, and free of compromise; even more importantly where both the people and the politicians trust the system.  The debate over real time transmission of election results is actually a reflection of our state of development in terms of both values and best practices. Some commentators have condemned the excuses about network coverage, cybersecurity, rural connectivity and insecurity in the land.  They argue that digital banking, telcos, and mobile money all work in Nigeria, and that the ruling party only wants to preserve itself in office. The truth beyond the politics, however, is that there are serious problems with all these platforms. Insecurity is also a problem. Who has never experienced the telcos failing real time? One particular network was out of operation for months in parts of the country! Who has not heard of banks complaining about their systems being down, and money transferred real time not reaching the beneficiary until days later, causing friction between the sender and the recipient?  Insecurity is also real in Nigeria: how do you transmit election results real time in places where both electricity and telecommunication infrastructure have been pulled down by insurgents and bandits? How do you even vote in places where terrorists also have their own election management structures, enforced by guns that impose violence real time?     

The people’s preference for real time electronic transmission of results is the right kind of aspiration to ensure that the people’s votes count. But there is a problem that we seem to be overlooking. What we have at the moment is manual voting, not electronic voting. Where people vote electronically, their votes are automatically recorded in the main server and tallied centrally, but even in those countries there are both advantages and disadvantages, compelling many to abandon the e-process altogether. It is also a very expensive option. Electronic voting or internet voting is not a deus-ex-machina, an automatic solution to electoral fraud, not to talk of electronic transmission of results. It works in Brazil where e-voting was adopted nationwide in the 2000 and 2002 elections, but it was first tested for four years. In Canada, e-voting is used only in some municipalities. Estonia uses e-voting in national elections.  E-voting has been tried in parts of Japan too, but it was abandoned at a point due to cost, the antics of malicious insiders inserting crafted data or programmes to manipulate results as well as the burden of technical and legal challenges. Can Nigeria afford the same cost?  The aspiration to move in the direction of electronic elections, both voting and transmission can only be achieved long-term after trials to master the processes involved. Are we willing to learn from the examples in other jurisdictions, and not simply jump into fire? Who will check the malicious insiders and outsiders?

The current system of voting in Nigeria is manual which means that on election day, voters thumbprint ballot papers which are counted at the polling stations, manually recorded, and then the result is taken to the collation centre where the results are announced and then transmitted to INEC. It is still basically a manual process. The problem is the fraudulent hijack of results between the polling units and the collation centres. The copy of results sent to the INEC’s IReV portal from polling units is merely for viewing. IREV is not a collation centre;  it is a viewing portal, and that is why our courts rely on Form EC8A, and do not accept IReV evidence. The Supreme Court in Atiku v. INEC (2023) 19 NWLR ruled that “The INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) is not a collation system. There is a difference between a collation system and the IReV portal though both are part of the election process. Whereas the collation system is made up of the centres where results are collated at various stages of the election, the IReV Portal is to give the public the opportunity to view the polling unit results on the election day. They are part of the election process” per John Inyang Okoro, JSC. The Supreme Court went further to uphold the power of INEC to prescribe the manner of transmission of election results, and the importance of hard copies of the result sheets. This National Assembly has shown no inclination to review the powers of INEC in this regard.

Electronic transmission of results is desirable but should it be mandatory, real time and is Nigeria ready? These are the two central questions of the moment. We can only insist, however, on starting from somewhere – possibly how to start with building blocks.  This whole debate about electronic transmission of results is useful, but it is very much like a battle of wits between the armed robber and the owner of the property. The armed robber would always attempt to steal but the property owner also has an obligation to make the task difficult for the robber by putting safeguards in place. Neither party trusts the other. How, then, do we build a nation without trust, and without proper orientation? The best electoral framework can be designed with good intentions; it would take more than an amended Electoral Act to prevent electoral fraud.