February 22, (THEWILL) — As expected, condemnation from a broad section of Nigerians has continued to trail President Bola Tinubu’s Wednesday assent to the Electoral Amendment Bill, shortly after its passage by the National Assembly the previous day, Tuesday. The thorny issue surrounded the provision for electronic transmission of results in real time without the proviso of a manual back up. While appending his signature to the bill, President Tinubu harped on “proper management and human oversight.”
“It’s not as important as the history aspects of this. What is crucial is the fact that you manage the process to the extent there will be no confusion, no disenfranchisement of Nigerians, and that we are all going to see democracy flourish,” Tinubu said.
This aspect of history, enfranchisement of the citizenry and due process, identified by the President, was the very grounds past two officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, urged the President to withhold assent and impel the senior lawmakers to uphold the general clamour for an unambiguous declaration for electronic transmission of results in real time.
Drawing on past experiences, former Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, Barrister Mike Igini and ex-Director of Voter Education, said the new Electoral Act may sound on paper as a reform but in reality, it is a recipe for disaster. Both of them disclosed that there will be no different outcome from the conducted elections in the past. For them, the life of polling officers and adhoc staff, mainly drawn from the youth corps members, will be at stake because of the provision on manual backup.
They contended that doggy politicians, desperate to win at all cost, will contrive to ensure there is no network and instead insist on the manual default mode of collation through the ECA 8 form, even when phones of voters may indicate otherwise. To further buttress his point, Barrister Igini cited an unnamed state where the network was shut down during the 2019 general election. In another case, signals were jammed. That is how desperate politicians can go. And the manual back up proviso in the Electoral Act, it seems, has opened the gate wide for that form of rigging.
Even so, we note that the sustained public advocacy for a clear, unambiguous clause that would have enhanced transparency and remove manipulation was robust and an indication that the citizenry would go to any length to make its voice heard in any piece of legislation that affects democratic practice. That is how it should be in a democracy. Without the active participation of civil rights groups, political parties, professional bodies like the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, the Nigeria Society of Engineers, NSE, the Nigerian Guild of Editors, NGE, and the Nigeria Union of Journalists, not to talk of many Senators who appeared at webinars to further enlighten the citizens on the fine points of issues at state, the senate would have ended up with the contentious section 60 in the Electoral Amendment Act 2022, dressed up as new amendment. The change of the wordings from transfer to transmission, is significant mileage for advocacy despite the provision on manual backup.
Now that the President has signed the bill into law and sent it to the Clerk of the NASS for certification before it is gazetted, we call for continued debate and engagement on adoptable methods to ensure the right things are done on henceforth. For one, the new law now makes the INEC Result Viewing Portal, IReV, justiciable unlike in the past when it was considered a mere viewing portal, according to the Supreme Court ruling on the presidential election suit in 2023. No doubt, the dual role conferred on the IRev by the 2026 Act has been watered down by the provision on manual back up.
But like INEC had disclosed in the past that it had attained 95 per cent in electronic transfer of results in the past, attention must now shift to the Commission. It must be prevailed upon to do the right thing. From the polling units to the collation centers and eventual announcement of the results, the voters must be vigilant and monitor every of these actions on the way.
