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From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Former Cross State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mike Igini, has said that majority of the members of the National Assembly stand a risk of losing re-election to the parliament in 2027, without mandatory electronic transmission of election results.
In a statement, yesterday, Igini charged the federal lawmakers, to jettison the proviso to real time electronic transmission of election results, included by the Senate to the Electoral Act 2022 amendment.
The former REC, while urging the lawmakers to hearken to the demand of Nigerians for mandatory electronic transmission of election results, recalled that the failure of previous members of the National Assembly to block the lacuna in the electoral law, cost them their re-election as it was exploited to rig them out.
The House of Representatives, had last year, approved mandatory electronic transmission of election results, in the ongoing review of the Electoral Act 2022. However, the Senate, on its part, gave a caveat to the electronic transmission of results.
While the two chambers have set up a conference committee to harmonise areas of differences in their resolutions on the proposed electoral law, the majority of Nigerians have been demanding for the adoption of the House version on electronic transmission.
Nevertheless, those opposed to electronic transmission of results, have argued that there is no adequate network coverage of the entire country.
But the former REC dismissed the claims, noting that, “before we left office in 2022, INEC and NCC had carried out a survey of network coverage of both 2G and 3G and came up with a report of over 97 percent coverage across Nigeria.
“That was what the commission used to carry out the e-transmission of polling units results to IREV successfully real-time in over 105 off-cycle elections, including five governorship elections before the 2023 elections. Network concerns are, therefore, largely excuses and completely specious.”
Igini explained that, “the BVAS device is engineered for both online and offline functionality. Results entered at polling units are queued and automatically uploaded upon network restoration. The Senate’s proviso invites mischief, affording opportunities for collusion between influential actors, collation officials and telecommunication providers, to engineer deliberate network failures on election day.”
According to him, “Nigerians have insistently demanded real-time electronic transmission from polling units to IReV, precisely to forestall post-polling alterations at ward or local government collation centres. Publicly viewable results serve as deterrence and would render such tampering manifest and actionable.
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“Nigerians and indeed incumbent legislators, particularly those that have demonstrated competence, independence and legislative proficiency, deserving of re-election, require this safeguard more acutely than any other cohort for legislative institutional capacity building.
“Real-time electronic transmission is, therefore, not merely desirable; it is essential for the sustenance of our democracy and for re-election of deserving legislators’ political survival.”
The former REC recalled that, “in the Senate, the Sixth Senate (2007-2011) returned only 23 of 109 members, with 86 newly elected Senators, representing a turnover rate of 79 percent. The Seventh Senate (2011-2015) recorded 36 re-elections and 73 new entrants (67 percent turnover). The Eighth Senate (2015–2019) saw 39 returning Senators and 70 newcomers (64 percent turnover). The Ninth Senate (2019–2023) marginally improved with 45 re-elected and 64 newly elected members, yielding a 59 percent turnover rate.
“Alarmingly, the current Tenth Senate (2023–2027) has regressed sharply, with only 25 returning Senators and 84 new entrants, translating to a staggering 77 percent turnover.”
He added that, “a similarly destabilising pattern persists in the House of Representatives. In the Sixth House (2007–2011), merely 80 of 360 members were re-elected, while 280 were newcomers (78 percent turnover). The Seventh House (2011–2015) recorded 100 re-elected members against 260 newly elected (72 percent turnover).
“The Eighth House (2015–2019) saw 110 returnees and 250 new legislators (69.4 percent turnover). The Ninth House (2019–2023) marked the lowest attrition in this period, with 151 re-elected and 209 newly elected members (57 percent turnover). However, the present Tenth House (2023–2027) has again deteriorated, returning only 109 members while ushering in 251 new legislators producing a 70 percent turnover rate.
“Across these electoral cycles, Nigerians and legislators have been the major victims and casualties of the type of proviso on e-transmission that has just been introduced that had led to the huge turnover in both chambers. Their attrition rate has averaged well above 60 to 70 percent, with fewer than four in 10 Senators and barely one-third of representatives typically securing re-election.”
He implored the federal lawmakers “to heed the salutary lessons from the misfortunes that befell their predecessors. Those earlier Assemblies, for reasons of convenience and party loyalty, refused to address well-documented election rigging vulnerabilities in our electoral laws, like the very proviso now introduced by the Senate, to qualify direct electronic transmission.
“Such lacunae were exploited to subvert polling-unit outcomes during their tenure by those who denied them re-election party tickets, rendering them victims of the very defects they declined to remedy or introduce to the Act.
“The 10th Assembly now stands perilously close to replicating this lamentable pattern. Those members not favoured or not in the good books of their respective state governors or party leaders will foreseeably be denied tickets and, given the prospects of an unprotected or unsecured e- transmission of polling unit results, will find it exceedingly difficult to translate constituency endorsement however strong they may be, into electoral victory.”
