Former Minister of Education, Obiageli Ezekwesili, has urged the Senate to urgently reverse its stance on the proposed amendment to the Electoral Act and explicitly mandate real-time electronic transmission of election results, warning that continued legal ambiguity poses a serious threat to Nigeria’s democracy.
Ezekwesili made the call in a statement issued on Thursday night, February 5, and addressed to the Senate, members of the House of Representatives and the political elite.
She cautioned lawmakers against retaining what she described as dangerous uncertainty in the electoral legal framework, stressing that rejecting a clause that makes electronic transmission mandatory could further weaken public trust in the electoral process if left uncorrected.
“The wisest and free advice that the Nigerian Senate as well as the House of Representatives can receive from all well-meaning citizens of our country now is to know when to stop playing with fire,” the statement reads.
The former vice-president of the World Bank for Africa accused lawmakers of deliberately preserving vague provisions in Section 60 of the Electoral Act 2022, which leave the method and timing of result transmission to the discretion of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, instead of making real-time electronic uploads from polling units compulsory.
She argued that retaining the clause merely reproduces the same loophole that triggered widespread controversy and public distrust during the 2023 general election.
“By deliberately retaining the vague language that leaves the method and timing of transmitting election results to the discretion of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Senate has once again weaponized ambiguity in our electoral law,” Ezekwesili said.
READ ALSO: Senate Approved Real-Time E-Transmission Of Election Results, Abaribe Insists
She dismissed claims by the Senate that it did not reject electronic transmission, describing such assertions as misleading and politically disingenuous.
“Electronic transmission that is optional, discretionary, and unenforceable is no safeguard at all against the systemic electoral fraud that has plagued our country,” she said.
“It was that same clause that created a gap between what Nigerians were repeatedly reassured would happen in the 2023 elections and the fiasco that the law permitted INEC to actually carry out in betrayal of public trust.
“The 2023 elections tested Nigeria’s cohesion. Our country survived not because the system worked well, but because citizens restrained themselves in the face of deep frustration.”
Ezekwesili called on senators to reconvene immediately and pass the exact wording of the proposed amendment requiring compulsory electronic transmission of polling unit results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal, IReV.
“Senators, cancel that emergency two-week break announced today, all return to the Red Chamber of the National Assembly complex, and in a broadcast Plenary Session, unanimously pass into law the exact text of the reform that was proposed to the clause on electronic transmission of results,” she wrote.
“It is not wise to play with fire. Transparency is always better.”
Her intervention comes amid sustained public backlash over the Senate’s decision not to make real-time electronic upload of polling unit results mandatory.