Empirical evidence, not sentiment, shaped Electoral Act changes on e-transmission — Senate

Barely days after reworking provisions of the Electoral Act to allow electronic transmission of results with a fallback to manual collation where internet access fails, the Senate of Nigeria has said its decision was firmly anchored on empirical data and the country’s infrastructural realities.

The Senate explained that evidence-based assessments informed its choice to make electronic transmission of election results discretionary rather than mandatory in the ongoing amendment of the Electoral Act.

In a statement issued on Sunday through his Directorate of Media and Public Affairs, the Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, said lawmakers relied on hard data after wide consultations with stakeholders in the communications and power sectors, stressing that the decision was not driven by “emotion or sentiment.”

By global standards, Bamidele said, the real-time electronic transmission of results “may not be practicable at this stage of our development,” adding that lawmaking “comes with huge obligations globally, and the Senate cannot discharge such responsibilities to the detriment of the citizenry.”

The controversy centres on Clause 60(3) of the Electoral Bill, 2026, which initially stipulated that the presiding officer “shall electronically transmit the results from each polling unit to INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) in real time…” The Senate later reviewed the clause to strengthen electronic transmission in line with public demand, but introduced a caveat that, in the event of internet failure, Form EC8A would serve as the primary means of result collation.

Bamidele noted that although Clause 60(3) “is an initiative that any legislature or parliament globally will have embraced ordinarily,” the Senate had to weigh it against Nigeria’s infrastructural capacity.

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Citing data from the Nigerian Communications Commission, he said Nigeria achieved about 70 per cent broadband coverage in 2025, while internet user penetration stood at 44.53 per cent of the population.

He also referenced the Speedtest Global Index, which ranked Nigeria 85th out of 105 countries in mobile network reliability and 129th out of 150 in fixed broadband reliability.

According to him: “Based on the Speedtest Global Index, Nigeria’s mobile network reliability was 44.14 megabits per second. This is extremely low compared with the United Arab Emirates, which has 691.76 mbps; Qatar, with 573.53 mbps; Kuwait, with 415.67 mbps; Bahrain, with 303.21 mbps; and Bulgaria, with 289.41 mbps. The Index placed Nigeria far below the global average.

“Nigeria’s fixed internet broadband rating is quite low by the global standard. Out of 150 countries, Nigeria ranked 129th with only 33.32 Mbps. In this rating, Singapore came first with 410.06 mbps followed by the UAE’s 382.35 mbps; France’s 346.25 mbps; Chile’s 348.41 mbps; and Hong Kong’s 345.25 mbps.”

The Senate Leader also drew attention to official data on electricity supply, revealing that at least 85 million Nigerians “still lack access to grid electricity,” representing about 43 per cent of the population.

“This shortfall speaks to the state of our power infrastructure. Even though our generation capacity hovers roughly between 12,000 and 13,500 megawatts, our distribution and transmission capacity is acutely limited. As we all know, it can only deliver 4,500 megawatts to households nationwide. But with the Electricity Act, 2025, our power sector will record significant growth from this financial year,” he said.

Given these realities, Bamidele warned that making real-time electronic transmission mandatory could plunge the country into crisis.

“To avoid a situation that compounds our country’s woes, it is better that we make it discretionary since Section 62(2) of the Electoral Act, 2022, has already established the National Electronic Register of Election Results,” he said.

“All these facts were before us for consideration… The data speak directly to the stark realities of our federation, not to emotion or sentiment.

“We recognise that lawmaking globally comes with huge responsibilities. As representatives of the people, we cannot enact laws based purely on public emotion or sentiment.”

He added that democracy thrives on laws grounded in facts, warning that legislation detached from national realities could become “a script for anarchy or a ploy for instability.”

“This deduction guided the decision of the Senate to redraft Clause 60(3 & 5) with a caveat… The caveat, in this case, is the outright deletion of ‘real time’ from the clause so that we will not end up with an electoral governance framework that cannot respond to the stark realities of our fatherland,” Bamidele said.

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