Electoral Reform: 10th Senate Opens A Dark Window For Rigging

EXPRESSO BY STEVE OSUJI

They eventually ‘gamed’ Nigeria; in passing the Electoral Bill 2026, they left a dark hole for the sole purpose of rigging the election.

The front-page banner photograph of Daily Sun (Wed. February 11, 2026), says it all.

But unbeknownst to them, this image is already well etched in digital memories and it shall be a damning testament to the infamy of Nigeria’s 10th Senate of 2026.

The photo shows Senate President Godswill Akpabio and about a dozen other colleagues in an expansive mood. The picture freezes an unmistakably full-throated hearty laughter. They are throwing banter and obviously enjoying the moment.

Ironically, the moment is not one for drunken mirth. It’s a moment in an epoch; it’s such a moment history covets for her eternal purposes. It’s akin to such a moment when Brutus stabbed Caesar on the floor of the Roman Senate. Yes, Brutus killed Caesar in cold blood but Caesar never died. His memory remains preserved in  humanity’s hall of fame. It was Brutus who died, after all!

The 10th Senate in its higgedly-piggedly electoral reform process  thinks it has put one up over Nigeria and Nigerians. Members are seen glorying in the fact that they may have enacted a dubious win-win (win-rig) electoral reform. They imagine they had satisfied the cravings of Nigerians while allowing a wayward window of manipulation and rigging.

But history has framed their infamy and Nigerians can see through their game.

We say thanks but no thanks to the senate; we say nothing has changed; we say 10th Senate has only done a yeoman’s job for its ruling APC masters in its handling of the electoral reform legislation of 2026 and history shall definitely be unkind to them.

And this is assuming that their vile act doesn’t boomerang sooner…

This infamous picture of the 10th Senate led by Akpabio shows members after the historic emergency plenary session on Nigeria’s Electoral Bill Amendments.

What ought to be a period of sober national reckoning turned out to be a week of political skulduggery and dark manipulations.

The Senate had previously offered Nigerians what was perceived as a blank cheque for election rigging. But upon a national uproar that came in the trail of the first proposal,  the legislators backed down. But they didn’t give up.

 They allowed a MANDATORY TRANSMISSION OF ELECTION RESULTS but not without inserting a dangerous proviso: that transmission may also be conducted manually where technology fails.

 This is the catch. This is the game! In 2027, Nigeria may end up conducting a major election in Which 90% of the results would be manually recorded and transmitted because the 10th Senate opened that dark window.

This means that the entire election and coming ones may be marred by this minor clause. And such tainted results would be upheld by an even more tainted judiciary.

By this seeming simple, little misdemeanor of this Senate, an entire electoral cycle is damaged, the judiciary is further twisted, INEC is suborned and Nigeria’s democratic system is set back many decades once again. It means that we shall have to begin another tortuous reform; we shall have to begin again at huge costs all round.

But the matter is actually very simple. It’s just that the so-called legislators  have proved to be dubious and without honour.

The electoral law should simply mandate INEC to apply the basic election technology it had acquired and perfected since 2022, having successfully deployed the tech in various state-wide  elections.

The same technology that ensures online verification of a voter would work for the upload of results in situ, after voting in each polling unit. Once a result is uploaded, it is already on a digital memory and would transmit in time.

This same technology is applied in all manner of banking transactions, including POS across the country daily.  It is used in WAEC, NECO, JAMB, examinations processes nationwide.

The INEC on its part had long assured Nigeria that this can be done. In the 2023 election, it was being done perfectly until politicians interdicted the process and GLITCHED it. Even then, the technology worked for the legislature election held on the same day but got botched for the Presidential election!

The INEC had told Nigerians about five years ago that the use of technology in the collation and transmission of results was, “ long overdue, doable, achievable and inevitable.” This was INEC speaking about five years ago.

All that we need to do this time is to insist that INEC applied the technology without a GLITCH. We needed to prescribe more stringent penalties for manipulation of the system and ensure manipulators don’t benefit, etc.

But the 10th Senate chose to weaken the electoral law and open a window for abuse.

According to Sylvester Udemezue, seasoned public intellectual and law teacher, “ The network failure argument is a red herring.”

He says further that,  “The Senate President’s argument that mandatory real-time transmission would prevent elections from holding in areas with poor network or grid failure, is conceptually flawed and empirically weak. Mandatory electronic transmission doesn’t mean uniform technical conditions everywhere; it means uniform legal obligation. As shown in comparative electoral  systems where  electronic transmission is the order (India, Brazil, Estonia and even parts of the United States)… technical contingencies are anticipated and legislated for, not used as an excuse to abandon systemic safeguards.”

NO TO SENATE’S DARK WINDOW: In summation, Nigerians must arise and resist the clause allowing manual transmission of any results in our electoral system. We must insist, we must continue to take the steps forward and not allow a few kakistocrats hold down our country.

LAST LINE:

I

 MAY HAVE DIED LAST WEEK in the hands of the Nigerian army: I almost got into what may have been a fatal trouble as I travelled from Anambra to Imo states recently. In a public transport I was engrossed in an important telephone call and was oblivious of the fact that the bus had stopped at an army checkpoint. Suddenly a bedlam ensued in the bus: phone! phonecall! Other passengers chimed hushedly.

When I realised the situation, a very young soldier was right there glowering at me through the bus’ window…

I was in perplexion. “Oldman,” he addressed me rather rudely. “You don’t know you’re not supposed to make calls at army checkpoints. If we handle you now they will say we are intimidating civilians.” I was livid already at his lack of courtesy and good sense. I could have been his father!

He eyeballed me some more, considering his next move (whether to un-board me for a frog march or seize my phone, prospects I would have resisted even unto death). I quickly blurted: “I am sorry,” just to save the day. The little armed boy eyed me disdainfully some more and waved the bus driver on. Not before he had extorted the poor fellow.

The point here is that a younger person would have met his doom on account of this innocuous happenstance that’s by no means a security breach.

We are now in a country in which we can’t make calls freely, yet we’re not in a war?!

The second point is that we don’t need the proposed OPERATION EASTERN SANITY by the Nigerian Army in Igboland. The so-called operation would only further limit freedoms and radicalise the zone. There are too many military checkpoints in the southeast already, now turn ‘toll gates.’ Let’s begin a gradual dismantling instead of introducing a further garrison. Let’s restore civil order; let the police begin to do its work please!###