Two wordsmiths, Dan Agbese and Matthew Hassan Kukah, have aptly captured our unwholesome national predilections. While others thought afar, Nigerians, Mr. Agbese once regretted, tended to think afoot. And while others make progress by moving forward, Bishop Kukah noted, Nigerians were content with making progress by moving in reverse.
These unseemly and fatuous tendencies played themselves out in the boldest relief on Wednesday, 4th February 2026 in Nigeria’s Senate. It is a day that will go down, in our annals, not only for its infamy but one on which the Senate, contrary to popular clamor, elected to subvert the will of Nigerians.
Recall that ahead of the 2023 General Elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) introduced two major innovations, namely: the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System(BVAS) and the INEC Results Viewing Portal(IReV). These innovations, like the Permanent Voter Card(PVC) and Smart Card Reader(SCR) before them, were designed to add more transparency to our elections. They were also expected to game change the elections in the fashion the PVC and SCR did in the 2011 and 2015 General Elections. In fact these innovations spurred voters, especially the youths who are enamored with technology, to embrace them and to turn out in their numbers to exercise their franchise.
Alas, following alleged glitches during the conduct of the presidential election in 2023, most polling unit results could not be transmitted nor were they uploaded on the IReV. Furthermore, the Supreme Court had ruled, in the aftermath of the said election, that electronic transmission of results was alien to law and that the provision in the law did not mandate the Commission to carry out electronic collation of results.
This lacuna, underlined by the Supreme Court, and the prospect of electronic transmission of results, real time, to bridge it and to eschew the manipulation of election results, which usually occurs at the level of collation, galvanized Nigerians to clamor for making it(electronic transmission of results) mandatory by law.
Rather than meeting this clamor as overwhelmingly canvassed by stakeholders, the Senate, on Wednesday, 4th 2026, after a five-hour debate and clause-by-clause consideration of the Electoral Amendment Bill 2026, rejected mandatory transmission of results from polling units. Instead, it maintained the status quo by retaining the provision of the Electoral Act 2022. It recommended that: “the presiding officer shall transfer the results, including the total number of accredited voters and the results of the ballot, in a manner as prescribed by the Commission”.
Before Wednesday’s rejection of mandatory electronic transmission of polling unit results, real time, which had passed in the House of Representatives, the Senate had comported itself in manners that amply suggested it harbored an agenda, hidden and inimical.
In spite of the pivotal nature of the amendment bill to our elections, and the fact that by UN, AU and ECOWAS protocols, laws informing elections are supposed to be in the public space, at least six months before the conduct of General Elections so that stakeholders will be guided, the Senate carried on lackadaisically, and as if it had all the time in the world.
Even when the House of Representatives had deliberated on the bill, and had, by last December passed it, the Senate did not see any reason to complement the House’s lofty effort by speedily deliberating on, and passing the bill.
Earlier on, Senator Sharafadeen Ali had shepherded the amendment process as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Electoral Matters. As the process reached its climax, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, replaced him. His successor, Senator Simon Lalong, suffered no qualms in absenting himself at the resumption of the Senate after its recess. Neither did he have the courtesy to explain to Nigerians his inexplicable absence. As a consequence, deliberations were stalled until the next day. On resumption, the Senate chose to go into an executive session over a bill that was crucially important to Nigerians and which most of them wanted it debated in full public view.
As if shutting the Senate’s chamber to public glare was not cavalier or capricious enough, the Senate set up an ad hoc committee, chaired by Senator Adeniyi Adegbonmire, to harmonize what it referred to as contentious clauses in the bill.
It is highly regrettable that after this needless filibuster and foot dragging, all the Senate would do at the end of the day was to reject, outright, the mandatory transmission of election results and to find recourse in a provision which the Supreme Court has ruled as defective and which does not give potent and full cover to transmission of results as contemplated in Section 60(1-5)of the Electoral Act 2022 and enunciated in paragraph 38 of the REGULATIONS AND GUIDELINES FOR THE CONDUCT OF ELECTIONS, 2022.
By latching onto the provision of the Electoral Act 2022 as it relates to electronic transmission of results, the Senate is foisting on us a law that is manifestly obtuse, defective and pliable and which makes room for the manipulation of our elections. It is disingenuous to argue that a resort to this provision equates to mandatory transmission of polling unit results as earlier articulated and passed by the House of Representatives.
By regurgitating the provision of the Electoral Act 2022, the Senate is admitting, wittingly and unwittingly, that its distinguished members are scared of subjecting themselves to the rigors of an electoral process that has muscular guardrails and that is fool- and rig-proof.
Even at the best of times, voter turn out, since the advent of the Fourth Republic, has not surpassed the 70% mark. In the 1999 presidential election, voter turn out was 52.26%. In the controversial 2023 presidential election, it had plunged to a mere 26.72%. With the rejection of mandatory electronic transmission of results, most Nigerians who see it as a stalwart transparency measure, and which would have made their votes to count, would keep away from the polls next year. This will then make worse an already bad situation. By all accounts, INEC suffers a trust deficit, following its challenges in the 2023 General Elections. A recent YIAGA-AFRICA survey validates this by showing that only 45% of Nigerians express confidence in INEC’s ability to conduct elections.
In addition to worsening voter apathy, any candidate who emerges victorious in an election, so-called, is most likely going to carry the day with a shrunken and anaemic mandate. Such a candidate is therefore going to execute a mandate that is not robust and not fully representative of majority of his/her constituents.
Though INEC, at all times, has to operate within the ambit of the law, its task of conducting elections, and earning trust in the process, will become uphill. Besides, repairing INEC’s battered image, arising from 2023, in the absence of mandatory electronic transmission of results, becomes a herculean task.
It is clear that with regard to the electronic transmission of results, the Senate acted at variance with the wishes of Nigerians. They rejected electronic transmission of results not based on any cogent or compelling reason(s). They did so to exploit the loophole in the law and to, willy nilly, perpetuate themselves in office.
Wednesday, 4th February 2026 will go on record as the day Nigerians beckoned on their distinguished Senators to raise the bar of our elections, and by extension our democracy, by investing them with more integrity. Instead of doing so, they lowered the bar by several rungs and for self-serving reasons.
Little wonder, and with distinguished Senators such as these, we will continue to be the butt of cruel and boorish jokes.