The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) has called on the National Assembly to respect the will of Nigerians and urgently review its stance on electoral reform to restore public confidence in the democratic process, by ensuring mandatory real-time transmission of election results.
President of CBCN, Most Rev. Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji in his address at the opening session of the 2026 First Plenary Meeting of the CBCN themed “The Common Good and Leadership in Nigeria,” on Sunday in Abuja, warned that the steady collapse in voter’s turnout poses a disastrous blow to democracy.
Ugorji who delivered his last address as CBCN’s President haven completed his four year tenure, cited a sharp and consistent decline in voter participation, noting that the figures reflect citizens’ loss of trust in elections.
He said: “In 2003, the turnout was 69 per cent. In 2007, it was 57 per cent; in 2011, 54 per cent; in 2015, 43.65 per cent; in 2019, 35.66 per cent; and in 2023, it dropped to 23 per cent.
“This decline says a lot about citizens’ trust in the electoral process and calls into question the legitimacy of elected officials in a democratic dispensation with the mandate of an ever decreasing minority.”
The CBCN President warned that should the downward trend continues, “it will inflict a disastrous blow to democracy in Nigeria.”
Ugorji urged the National Assembly to ensure that the Electoral Act provides for “the mandatory transmission of election results in real-time from the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System at the polling unit to the INEC Result Viewing portal at the Commission’s headquarters to prevent any human tampering with the expressed will of the electorate. This is the will of the people and has to be respected.”
He accused federal lawmakers of inconsistency, noting that while they had earlier passed a tax reform law mandating digital filing and payments nationwide, they appeared reluctant to entrench digital transparency in elections.
“The honourable members of the National Assembly should not allow themselves to be perceived as talking out of both sides of the mouth, expressing inconsistent and contradictory positions in the process of passing bills. The world is watching! Above all, God is also watching.”
Beyond electoral reforms, Ugorji painted a grim picture of the nation’s worsening security situation, lamenting what he described as “senseless massacres, mass burials, endless tears and grief.”
He cited recent killings in parts of Kwara State, where over 200 villagers were reportedly massacred, and criticised what he called the largely reactive approach of security agencies.
“With threats of killing their captives, they demand huge ransoms and even brazenly brandish on social media the ransom they have collected without disguising themselves. Yet, they are not arrested through their digital footprints.
“The largely reactive or rather counter-attack approach has not been very effective in protecting vulnerable communities. This approach is like administering medicine after death.”
He called on government to invest heavily in modern surveillance technology and strengthen intelligence systems, insisting that perpetrators of terrorism, banditry and kidnapping must be “swiftly arrested, prosecuted and held accountable under the law.”
On illegal mining, the cleric described it as “national economic sabotage” linked to insecurity, alleging that Nigeria loses about $9bn annually to the illicit trade.
“Criminal groups use proceeds from the sale of minerals to buy weapons and fund terrorist activities across the country,” he said, urging the deployment of drone technology and artificial intelligence to monitor remote sites.
Speaking further, Ugorji identified poor leadership and a distorted understanding of politics as the root of Nigeria’s woes.
“We must concede that the root of our afflictions as a nation is largely the problem of poor leadership and the wrong perception of politics among many of our leaders merely as the rigging of elections and stealing of other peoples’ mandate; the amassing of ill-gotten gains.”
Quoting Pope Benedict XVI, he added, “A State which is not governed according to justice would be just a bunch of thieves.”
He stressed that political leadership exists for the common good and urged Nigerians to elect leaders with proven records of probity, competence and commitment to service rather than self-enrichment.
