Former senior officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have warned that conflicting provisions on electronic transmission of results in the Electoral Act 2026 could undermine electoral integrity if not promptly addressed.
The warning was raised on Friday during a roundtable discussion organised by Yiaga Africa in Abuja, themed, “Electronic Transmission and Electoral Integrity: Safeguarding the Vote under the Electoral Act 2026.”
President Bola Tinubu recently signed the amended Electoral Act 2026 into law, prompting INEC to adjust the election timetable.
Civil society groups have also called for real-time transmission of results from polling units to INEC’s central server to prevent manipulation and strengthen credibility.
Among those who spoke at the event were former INEC National Commissioner Festus Okoye, former Resident Electoral Commissioner Mike Igini, former ICT Director Engr. Chidi Nwafor, and several civil society leaders.
Okoye, who chaired INEC’s Information and Voter Education Committee, noted that while the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) is a highly innovative device, the 2026 Act contains drafting inconsistencies that could create confusion.
He explained that references to the BVAS replaced the Smart Card Reader in some sections but not uniformly, leaving ambiguity in the law.
“Where BVAS appears in the principal section, Smart Card Reader is still retained in other parts of the Act.
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The National Assembly needs to clean up the drafting to avoid ambiguity,” Okoye said, adding that technology evolves rapidly and statutes should not embed specific devices.
Okoye highlighted Section 60 of the 2026 Act, which mandates electronic transmission of polling unit results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) while retaining Form EC8A, the manual result sheet, as the primary source for collation.
He said discrepancies between the two methods must be addressed, suggesting that electronically transmitted results to the collation system should carry greater weight.
Engr. Chidi Nwafor traced Nigeria’s technological electoral reforms to early digitised voter registration efforts in 2003 and the introduction of biometric systems under former INEC Chairman Attahiru Jega.
The former officials urged lawmakers to harmonise the provisions of the Electoral Act 2026 to eliminate ambiguities and safeguard the integrity of future elections.