Internet coverage not an excuse for rejecting e-transmission of election results —Monday Ubani

Monday Ubani is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and former Second National Vice-President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).

FROM a legal standpoint, what is the significance of the Senate’s decision to retain the 2022 framework on result transmission rather than explicitly mandating electronic transmission in the amended Electoral Act?

You know, there is a bit of confusion now as to what actually transpired, and they have asked that we wait until we see the proceedings so we can understand what happened on the floor. The President of the Senate (Godswill Akpabio) was saying that they retained transmission and that it was nowhere excluded, so we need to see the details of the proceedings to have a clear idea of what transpired. But I think the best thing to do is to actually allow electronic transmission.

When the Senate President was talking after the passage of the bill, he noticeably failed to mention the term “mandatory.” So, the issue for many critics is that the chamber appeared to have not made transmission mandatory in the bill it passed.

If they did not use “mandatory”, we are effectively back to the 2022 Act—but there was an intention to amend the 2022 Act to address what happened in 2023. If you remember, the first election under the online transmission regime sparked controversy. INEC said they had a glitch, which caused a lot of problems and litigation. We don’t want too much litigation. We want the election to be decided at the polling unit, so everyone will know immediately whether they have won or not. So, the issue of mandatory transmission should be an advancement from the 2022 Act. If we go back to 2022, why waste all that time and money trying to amend the law? There were clear reasons advanced by people clamouring for electoral reform, and there was an agreement that there must be mandatory transmission. It was going to be an improvement from the 2023 election. I think they will correct it.

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The good thing about this particular Act is that a Conference Committee has been set up to harmonise the positions. The Senate’s position differs from that of the House of Representatives. Senators will want to do what their constituents want. If Nigerians are demanding mandatory transmission, I don’t think there are legislators who want to act contrary to what their people want. That is my thinking: every representative will want to reflect their constituents’ wishes. If the majority of Nigerians want mandatory transmission, I don’t think they will go against it. That’s my view. I may be wrong, but that’s what I believe.

In an interview on Thursday night, the spokesperson of the Senate, Senator Yemi Adaramodu, suggested that the Senate did not mandate electronic transmission of election results in the amended Electoral Act because some communities in the country don’t have Internet services. The counter to his suggestion by advocates is that the Point of Sale (POS) device is used in almost every part of the country and it requires Internet to work, so INEC can find Internet to upload election results. What’s your view on the senator’s explanation?

If Internet coverage was an excuse before 2022, it is no longer an excuse now that we have network virtually everywhere. This is 2026. We can’t still be making excuses for not adopting transparent technology because of network issues.