The Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) has publicly opposed the Senate’s recent rejection of mandatory real-time electronic transmission of election results.

The Senate had earlier voted against the proposal, citing poor network coverage, cybersecurity risks, infrastructure deficiencies, and the potential for legal disputes.

The NSE, in a statement signed by its President, Engr. Ali Alimasyua Rabiu, asserted that the Senate’s concerns were not supported by technical expertise.

The group argued that electronic transmission, not manual handling, is the key to a more credible electoral process.

According to the engineers, electronic systems with end-to-end encryption and digital signatures would actually reduce the risk of result tampering that currently exists with the physical transportation of result sheets.

They also stated that technologies such as 4G/5G networks, satellite communication, and offline data caching can overcome Nigeria’s connectivity challenges, enabling faster and more accurate result collation.

The NSE highlighted that digital systems provide a verifiable audit trail and, despite upfront costs, lead to long-term savings.

They pointed to successful implementations in countries such as Estonia and India as proof of concept.

The society declared its full support for making real-time electronic transmission mandatory, directly contradicting the Senate’s position, which retained INEC’s discretionary power to transmit results “in a manner prescribed by the Commission.”