Agbakoba to NASS: Make E-transmission mandatory or risk 2027 chaos

Former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Dr Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, has warned that Nigeria’s democracy will remain trapped in a cycle of disputed results and empty legal victories unless the National Assembly makes the electronic transmission (e-transmission) of results mandatory before the 2027 elections.

In a statement issued on Monday, the legal luminary argued that the current legal framework is a vicious cycle designed to fail, placing an insurmountable burden of proof on anyone challenging an election.

Reflecting on the 2023 polls, Agbakoba highlighted a critical judicial reality: while INEC deployed the IReV portal, the Supreme Court ruled that it lacked legal force because it wasn’t expressly mandated in the Electoral Act.

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“The message was unmistakable. Without explicit statutory provision, electronic transmission remains optional and legally inconsequential, no matter how transparent it may be,” Agbakoba stated.

He cited a famous prophecy by the late Justice Pat Acholonu from 2005, which suggested a petitioner would need nearly 300,000 witnesses to successfully challenge a presidential election.

“This prophecy has proven tragically accurate. No presidential election petition has ever succeeded since 1999 because verifying results from over 176,000 polling units within short legal timelines is a practical impossibility,” Agbakoba noted.

Drawing a parallel to the June 12, 1993, election, widely regarded as Nigeria’s freest and fairest, Agbakoba noted that credibility came from uncompromising transparency at the polling unit level.

He argued that by enshrining real-time electronic transmission in the 2026 legislative amendments, Nigeria can combine the ‘Option A4’ spirit of 1993 with modern digital security.

With the 2027 general elections on the horizon, the Senior Advocate described the current legislative window as a monumental opportunity to restore public trust.

“The National Assembly must act decisively to embed mandatory real-time electronic transmission of results in the Electoral Act.

“We must close the legal loopholes exploited to undermine the people’s will. Democracy demands nothing less,” Agbakoba concluded.