Opposition political parties have said that by rejecting the electronic transmission of election results, the Nigerian Senate has set Nigeria’s democracy backward by many decades.
In a joint statement on Thursday by their spokespersons, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi (African Democratic Congress, ADC); Ini Emembong (Peoples Democratic Party, PDP); and Bamofin Ladipo Johnson (New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP) the opposition parties wondered why the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), which is currently deploying technology to run an e-registration of its members across the country, is averse to using technology to transmit election results.
The parties stated that the APC knows the defeat that awaits it in 2027 and therefore sees free and fair elections as a threat.
“This is why they have to preserve and protect any loopholes that could aid the manipulation of the electoral process to their advantage,” the statement added.
According to the opposition parties, they had expected APC senators to rise above party sentiments and act in the best interest of democracy, for which the legislature remains its most important symbol.
“But as usual, they failed the people they are supposed to represent,” they regretted.
They noted that the Supreme Court, in most of the election cases it decided, held that there was nowhere in the Electoral Act 2022 where electronic transmission was made mandatory.
“This immediately signalled a lacuna that needed to be urgently fixed to ensure that future elections do not suffer the same fate,” the opposition parties said in the statement.
They added that beyond providing a basis for judicial action in future, electronic transmission would increase transparency, trust, and confidence in the electoral process, which in turn would deepen and consolidate democracy in the country.
“With this rejection, the Senate has returned Nigeria to square one,” they regretted.
The parties appealed to the conference committee members to align themselves with the Nigerian people by adopting the position of the House of Representatives on mandatory real-time electronic transmission of election results.
“They should not act as politicians whose eyes and thoughts are only on the next elections, but as statesmen who should have the next generation in mind.
“We are trusting that they will act in the best interest of the people, to forestall the negative consequences that may result from foisting anti-democratic laws on the people,” the spokespersons demanded.
