Electronic Transmission with Conditions: Reform, Retreat or Political Compromise?

Iyobosa Uwugiaren argues that while the Senate has accepted electronic transmission of results into Nigeria’s electoral design, it is only a guest, not as a rule.

After weeks of public outrage and sustained civic pressure, the Senate has retreated—though only partially—from its earlier rejection of electronic transmission of election results. On Tuesday, senators amended the Electoral Act to permit the electronic transmission of results from polling units to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) Result Viewing Portal (IREV). Yet the concession came with substantial conditions  well short of the sweeping reform many Nigerians had demanded.

Electronic transmission, though now admitted into Nigeria’s electoral framework, enters not as a rule but as a guest—welcome, but closely supervised.

Under the revised provision, election results may be transmitted electronically after vote counting. However, lawmakers inserted a decisive caveat: where internet connectivity or network access fails, the physical result sheet—Form EC8A—will serve as the primary basis for collation. By declining to make electronic transmission mandatory and retaining manual collation as a fallback, the Senate has opted for a cautious, politically calculated compromise rather than a full embrace of electoral transparency.

The amendment followed an emergency plenary session prompted by a motion from the Senate Chief Whip, Senator Tahir Monguno (APC, Borno North). He argued that the chamber needed to revisit its earlier stance to better align the Electoral Act with public expectations and evolving technological realities. Supporters of the move hailed it as a pragmatic balance between idealism and feasibility. Critics, however, see something more troubling: a reform diluted just enough to preserve old vulnerabilities.

Indeed, the Senate’s initial rejection of mandatory electronic transmission had triggered sharp public backlash. Civil society organisations, media professional bodies—including the Nigerian Guild of Editors—and pro-democracy groups warned that the decision risked reopening familiar pathways for result manipulation. For many Nigerians, technology is not a luxury in elections; it is a safety measure against interference at the most vulnerable point of the process—between polling units and collation centres.

The Senate’s reversal, therefore, appears less a conversion than a concession. Politically, it reflects a legislature attempting to balance competing pressures: the growing public demand for credible elections on one hand, and the unease of entrenched political interests on the other. Electronic transmission limits human discretion, and by extension, political influence. For many within the political class, that loss of discretion is unsettling.

While the amendment changes are important—but what it preserves may be even more consequential. By explicitly allowing manual collation to take precedence in cases of “network failure,” the law keeps alive a process long associated with controversy, disputes, and allegations of manipulation.

In a country where logistical challenges and technical failures are routinely cited, the “network failure” clause creates an ambiguity wide enough to swallow the reform itself. Where discretion thrives, disputes often follow.

No reasonable observer denies that Nigeria’s infrastructural realities are uneven. From an administrative standpoint, the provision grants INEC operational flexibility, particularly in rural or poorly connected areas where mandatory electronic transmission could be impractical. It shields the electoral body from accusations of non-compliance where genuine technical obstacles exist.

Yet politically, this flexibility cuts both ways. INEC will now be required to justify why electronic transmission was possible in some polling units but not others.

Selective application—whether genuine or professed—could deepen suspicion, undermine public trust, and create fresh grounds for post-election litigation. Rather than simplifying elections, the amendment may complicate them.

More fundamentally, by making electronic transmission optional rather than obligatory, the Senate has preserved the very discretion that reformers sought to curtail. In tightly contested elections, where margins are slim and stakes are high, disputes rarely arise at the polling unit. They emerge during collation—precisely the stage electronic transmission was designed to secure.

In this sense, the amendment functions as a political pressure valve. It eases public anger without fundamentally altering power dynamics within the electoral process. Analysts describe it as an attempt to manage conflict rather than resolve the deeper crisis of electoral credibility. Nigeria’s history of reform supports this scepticism: electoral changes are often packaged as progress while quietly conserving the status quo.

Still, the amendment is not without significance. For the first time, electronic transmission of results is unambiguously recognised in law. That matters. Legal recognition establishes a foundation upon which future reforms can build. It forecloses the argument that electronic transmission is illegal or extraneous to Nigeria’s electoral framework.

But recognition without compulsion is not transformation. As long as electronic transmission remains optional, its impact will depend less on statutory authority and more on political will—often the most unreliable variable in Nigeria’s elections. The credibility of the reform will hinge on how consistently INEC applies it, how transparently it explains deviations, and how firmly it resists political pressure.

The legal implications are equally significant. Ambiguity in electoral law rarely ends at the ballot box; it travels straight to the courts. The non-mandatory language of the amendment, combined with the “network failure” allowance, is likely to become a central issue in election petitions. Tribunals may be asked to determine whether electronic transmission was reasonably possible in specific locations, whether failure to transmit affected outcomes, and whether reliance on manual collation was justified.

Far from reducing post-election disputes, the amendment risks multiplying them. Yet the Senate’s reversal also reveals something encouraging: the rising influence of civic pressure in Nigeria’s democratic space. Public outrage, protests, and sustained advocacy forced lawmakers to reconsider an unpopular decision. That, in itself, is a democratic gain.

The problem is that partial reform often creates the illusion of progress while postponing real change. By offering a compromise, senators may have lowered political temperature without addressing the underlying deficit of trust in the electoral system. For reform advocates, the concern remains familiar and valid: Nigeria’s elections cannot be rescued by half-measures.

Ultimately, the amendment represents progress—but progress measured in inches, not strides. It reflects a political system struggling to reconcile citizens’ demands for transparency with elite fears of losing control.

Whether electronic transmission becomes a stepping stone toward genuinely credible elections or merely an expedient compromise will depend on three factors: how INEC operationalises the provision, how courts interpret its ambiguities, and how relentless public pressure remains.

For now, electronic transmission has been admitted into Nigeria’s electoral design—but only as a guest, not as a rule. And until it becomes the rule, the credibility crisis it was meant to resolve will remain unsettled.