Dangers in Electoral Act’s ‘Network Failure’ Clause

By empowering electoral officers to use manually completed and duly signed Form EC8A as the primary source for collation and declaration of results in areas experiencing network failures, the Senate has created a loophole in the Electoral Act for election riggers to manipulate election results and truncate the will of Nigerians, Ejiofor Alike reports

Despite public outcry, the Senate last Tuesday refused to make real-time electronic transmission of election results mandatory in Nigeria’s electoral law.

The federal lawmakers had earlier come under fire for the grave betrayal of public trust by passing an amended Electoral Act that rejected mandatory real-time electronic upload of election results from polling units.

The Supreme Court had in October 2023 ruled that the electronic transmission of election results was not mandatory under the Electoral Act 2022.

The apex court affirmed that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had the legal authority and discretion to determine the specific mode for transmitting and collating election results.

The court clarified that the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal was not a collation system and was intended only for public viewing because the 2022 Electoral Act did not recognise it as a collation instrument.

It further ruled that failure or unavailability of results on IReV did not invalidate an election outcome or halt the manual collation process.

It was therefore shocking to many Nigerians that during the passage of the Electoral Act (Repeal and Enactment) Bill, 2026, the Senate still retained the contentious provisions of the 2022 law, which empowers INEC to prescribe the mode of results transmission.

This development had triggered outrage from opposition parties, civil society and pro-democracy advocates, who warned that the move undermined democratic consolidation.

Following the backlash that trailed the amendment, the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, summoned an emergency session last Tuesday.

However, at the emergency session, the lawmakers still failed to make real-time electronic transmission of election results mandatory, opting instead for a controversial amendment that still gives INEC the discretion to determine the mode of transmission.

Though the lawmakers approved electronic transmission of results from polling units, they retained the provisions for manual collation where network failure makes electronic transmission impossible.

Senate President, Akpabio, claimed that real-time transmission of election results may fail in nine states due to poor internet.

He said “real-time means that in over nine states where networks are not working because of insecurity, there will be no election results. “Nationally, if the national grid collapses and no network is working, no election results will be valid”.

The immediate past Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu had told the BBC in an interview shortly before the 2023 general election that the commission had the capacity to transmit the results electronically.

According to him, the commission conducted a pilot transmission of election results in a by-election held in Nasarawa State in August 2020 and had since transmitted results electronically in 105 constituencies nationwide, including major governorship elections in Anambra, Ekiti and Osun states, as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Many analysts have also reminded the APC-dominated Senate that before the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) transformed into APC, it had agitated for electronic voting.

In one of the press statements issued by the then National Publicity Secretary of ACN, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the ACN declared that with electronic voting, the overall cost of elections would be less and there would be stability in the polity.

Meanwhile, the version of the Electoral Act passed by the House of Representatives mandates electronic transmission of results, irrespective of internet challenges.

The Senate has constituted a nine-member harmonisation committee to reconcile differences between its version of the bill and the one earlier passed by the House of Representatives.

By recommending that if electronic transmission of election results fails, each polling officer could send results by manual transmission to the collation centre, the lawmakers have created a loophole for desperate politicians to collude with electoral officers to manipulate results on the ground that the network has failed. 

Electoral officers in many of the country’s 176,974 polling units can claim network failure and resort to manual transmission.

With this provision, election results can easily be manipulated. 

In his reaction, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar also challenged opposition parties to unite and oppose the amended Electoral Act Bill, warning that the Senate’s decision would worsen electoral chaos.

Speaking to journalists after a visit to former military President, Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (rtd.), in Minna, Niger State, Atiku said Nigerians expected real-time electronic transmission, not a hybrid system.

“Nigerians were expecting real-time electronic transfer of election results but what we got is a mixture of electronic and manual transmission, which is going to cause more confusion and chaos than if we had a single tier of election transmission system,” Atiku added.

Also reacting, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 presidential election, Mr. Peter Obi also dismissed Akpabio’s claim that real-time transmission of election results may fail in some parts of Nigeria due to poor internet.

Obi had last Monday, led a group of protesters to the National Assembly Complex in Abuja over the senate’s rejection of real-time electronic transmission.

In a statement shared via X on Tuesday, Obi said Akpabio’s claim that certain states lack network coverage is no longer acceptable.

“Financial institutions operate nationwide through secure digital networks to conduct transactions and collect taxes on a daily basis,” he said.

“If banking systems function seamlessly, our electoral system can and should do the same.”

Obi insisted that election results must be transmitted electronically and in real-time to protect the people’s mandate and eliminate manipulation.

It was also not surprising that Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) involved in election observation and civic advocacy rejected the Senate’s decision.

In a joint statement issued last Wednesday, Yiaga Africa, Centre for Media and Society (CEMESO), The Kukah Centre, International Press Centre (IPC), ElectHER, Nigerian Women Trust Fund, and TAF Africa, argued that the ‘network failure’ clause creates loopholes that could undermine electoral integrity.

The CSOs urged the Senate’s harmonisation committee to adopt the House of Representatives’ version of the amendment, which mandates electronic transmission of results, irrespective of internet challenges.

On its part, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) accused the Senate of being “clever by half”, describing the amendment as a backdoor attempt to undermine electronic transmission.

In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Ini Ememobong, the party urged members of the conference committee to adopt the House of Representatives’ version of the bill in the interest of credible elections.

In its reaction, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) argued that real-time electronic transmission of results is a long-standing safeguard needed to protect votes and preserve electoral integrity.

The party maintained that the bill, as passed, contains a controversial provision that introduces discretionary clauses.

The ADC noted that these clauses are capable of weakening the guarantee of real-time electronic transmission and could open the door to the manipulation of election results.

It is expected that the harmonisation committee will reject this controversial clause and adopt the version passed by the House of Representatives.