Electronic Transmission of Election Results: What Do Nigerians Want?

I wrote this piece on the day the Nigerian Senate recently reconvened for its emergency session on the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, 2026. Incidentally, they passed the bill on the same day, few minutes after I had ended my piece. Suffice it to say that their position on e-transmission of election results validated my questions. I posted this piece on my Facebook pages the same day, and I'm posting it here again for posterity sake and of course as part of my collections in my 'Mind, Body and Country' blog.


Emergency Session and the Controversy

The Senate today reconvened for an emergency session on the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2026. The session was necessitated by the controversy generated at their last sitting, where it was reported that the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, spearheaded the rejection of the e-transmission of election results. Akpabio, refuting the report, said the Chamber approved e-transmission as contained in the Electoral Act.

The Provision Being Referenced

To get a clearer view, the provision being referenced by him was Section 60(5), which says:

“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.”

At a closer look, there was no specific mention of 'e-transmission,' so I assume Akpabio believes that the wording, "in a manner as prescribed by the Commission," covers both physical and manual transmission. Others might think he was being clever by half, saying e-transmission is contained in the Act when no such word was specifically mentioned.

INEC and the Ambiguity Question

But to cut him some slack, evidence shows that the wording has never been a confusion to the electoral body, INEC, as they had, in past elections, gone beyond the ambiguity to take advantage of the part of the provision which empowers them to transfer results in a manner they want. It's the reason IRev was deployed for the 2023 general elections and subsequent off-cycle elections.

The Supreme Court Judgment and Renewed Demands

The problem now arises when there is a renewed call for the word "e-transmission" to replace "transfer," following the Supreme Court 2023 judgment which held that failure to upload results electronically does not automatically invalidate an election.

Given this, proponents of e-transmission no longer want INEC to exercise discretion in the deployment of technology. They want the Commission mandated to deploy e-transmission. Not only that, they want the transmission in real-time. In other words, immediately- as the Form EC8A is being snapped by the BVAS, the image should reflect on the IRev portal without a second's delay.

The Counter View

Critics, like Akpabio, however, think that while INEC has been given the power to choose which procedure to follow, that power should be retained, and the Commission not forced to always go with e-transmission. This is majorly due to network challenges and unstable power supply.

The Big Questions

The question now is, who is right and who is wrong? Is Akpabio and co. correct in their assessment of Nigeria's current network and power issues? Are e-transmission advocates wrong to demand such, given the reality on the ground? What is the network coverage of Nigeria currently? Is it adequate for e-transmission on election day? Who is going to help us determine that? If on election day network challenges occur, can we truly say the country has the capacity for e-transmission?

The Choice Nigerians Will Have to Make

If the National Assembly finally allows e-transmission to scale through, what is the extent of its operation? If, for example, network glitches occur on election day, will Nigerians prefer that transmission be paused until the network is restored? If that is the case, does it still count as real-time transmission? With this scenario, will it be fair to still demand mandatory or real-time e-transmission? Will they prefer that the whole result be cancelled or that manual collation proceed even when the IRev portal is facing challenges? That is the choice Nigerians will have to make. They will have to choose between mandatory e-transmission with a possibility of manual collation, or no election at all.

Unless We Are Certain

Unless, of course, we’re certain that the networks will be of their best behaviour on election day, which would make all the conversations around it unnecessary.

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