Category: News

A Civil Society Organisation (CSO), Nigeria Integrity Watch (NIW), has warned that making real-time electronic transmission of election results mandatory could disenfranchise millions of voters in rural and insecure parts of the country.

The warning followed last week’s passage of the Electoral Act 2022 (Repeal and Reenactment) Amendment Bill 2026 by the Senate after its third reading.

In passing the bill, the Senate declined to approve a proposed amendment to Clause 60(3), which sought to mandate the real-time electronic transmission of election results by presiding officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The rejected amendment would have required results from each polling unit to be electronically transmitted to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IREV) in real time after the prescribed result forms were signed, stamped, and countersigned by party agents.

Instead, the Senate retained the existing provision of the 2022 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.”

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Clarifying the Senate’s position, Senate President Godswill Akpabio said the lawmakers did not reject electronic transmission of results but only removed the phrase “real time” from the provision.

Speaking at a book launch on the burden of legislators in Nigeria, Akpabio explained that electronic transmission remains permissible under the law, but that insisting on real-time transmission could create legal and logistical challenges.

“All we said during discussion was that we should remove the word ‘real-time’ because if you say real-time, then there is a network or grid failure and the network is not working. When you go to court, somebody will say it ought to have been real-time. That was all we said,” he stated.

Reacting to the development in a statement on Tuesday, NIW described the push for mandatory real-time transmission as a looming “democratic emergency,” citing Nigeria’s weak digital and power infrastructure.

The organisation’s spokesperson, Dr. John Samuel Nang, said large portions of rural Nigeria—particularly areas affected by insecurity—lack reliable telecommunications coverage, warning that a rigid digital-only system could invalidate votes in communities without stable 4G or 5G networks.

“Even making ordinary phone calls has become difficult due to frequent network failures,” Nang said, questioning the feasibility of transmitting sensitive election data seamlessly in real time under such conditions.

NIW also raised concerns over Nigeria’s unstable power supply, noting that frequent national grid collapses could disrupt elections mid-process if electronic transmission becomes compulsory.

On sovereignty issues, the group argued that Nigeria does not have full control over its satellite infrastructure, warning that overreliance on external digital systems could expose the electoral process to manipulation.

The organisation recalled that the Supreme Court has recognised electronic transmission of results as supplementary rather than a replacement for manual collation, which it described as a critical safeguard of the electoral process.

NIW urged civil society groups and policymakers to focus on infrastructure readiness, calling on the Nigerian Communications Commission and telecommunications operators to ensure nationwide internet coverage before pushing for mandatory real-time transmission of election results.