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From Adesuwa Tsan, Abuja
Senate President Godswill Akpabio has dismissed mounting criticisms over the Senate’s ongoing amendment of the Electoral Act, insisting that the legislature is being judged prematurely based on an incomplete legislative process and widespread misunderstanding of parliamentary procedures.
Akpabio spoke on Saturday night in Abuja as the Special Guest of Honour at the public unveiling of a book titled “The Burden of Legislators in Nigeria”, authored by Senator Effiong Bob.
Addressing the controversy surrounding the Senate’s decision to remove the phrase “real-time” from the provision on electronic transmission of election results, Akpabio said the bill had not been concluded and that public debate at this stage was premature.
“The Electoral Act amendment is incomplete. We have not completed it, but they are already on television. They don’t understand lawmaking.
“They don’t even know that what is in the Senate is not completed until we look at the Votes and Proceedings,” he said.
He explained that the Votes and Proceedings stage allows senators to review, correct, amend or clarify decisions taken on the floor before final passage, stressing that only after this process could the Senate’s position be considered final.
“When we bring out the Votes and Proceedings, any senator has a right to rise and say, ‘On clause three, this was what we agreed upon.’ That is the only time you can talk about what the Senate has done or not done,” he said.
The Senate President criticised commentators and some civil society groups for what he described as persistent attacks on the legislature, accusing them of trying to impose their views on elected lawmakers.
“People have become mouth legislators. Go and contest election if you want to talk about lawmaking and go and join them and make the law. Retreats are not lawmaking; retreats are part of consultations. So why do you think that the paper you agreed in Lagos during a retreat must be what is agreed on the floor?” he asked.
Akpabio maintained that the Senate did not abolish electronic transmission of results, clarifying that lawmakers only questioned the requirement for real-time transmission.
“I must state clearly, without ambiguity, that the Senate has not removed any means of transmission. If you want to use a bicycle to carry your votes from one polling unit to the ward centre, do so. If you want to use your phone to transmit, do so. If you want to use your iPad, do so,” he said.
According to him, the Senate’s concern was that mandating real-time transmission could expose elections to legal challenges in the event of network or power failures.
“All we said was that we should remove the word ‘real time,’ because if you say real time and there is grid failure and the network is not working, when you go to court somebody will say it ought to have been real time,” he explained.
He said the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should be empowered to determine the appropriate mode and timing of result transmission within the framework of the law, warning that insisting on real-time transmission could invalidate results in areas with poor connectivity or security challenges.
“Real time means that in over nine states where networks are not working because of insecurity, there will be no election results. Nationally, if the national grid collapses and no network is working, no election results will be valid,” he said.
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Akpabio also cited a Supreme Court ruling, which he said acknowledged Nigeria’s infrastructural limitations and held that electronic transmission remains supplementary to the statutory manual collation process.
“The result is in Form EC8A. It will be carried from the polling unit to the ward centre, from there to the local government collation centre, to the senatorial collation centre, to the state collation centre, and finally the national collation centre,” he said.
He further stressed that the amendment bill had not completed the bicameral legislative process, noting that a conference committee would still harmonise differences between the Senate and House of Representatives versions before final passage.
“It is only when we have finished that that you will now say the National Assembly has passed any amendment to the Electoral Act,” he said, urging critics to allow the process to run its full course and warning against attempts to “rubbish the process” prematurely.
Akpabio said electoral reforms must reflect Nigeria’s legal and institutional capacity, cautioning against imposing technology beyond the country’s infrastructure.
“We insist that electoral reforms must be anchored in law, guided by capacity, secured against abuse and applied uniformly across the nation. Technology must serve democracy; it must not endanger democracy,” he said.
“You stay in a place that has no wire, no light, and you want to put in the law ‘real time.’ Progress must not bring about injustice.”
He warned that sustained mistrust of democratic institutions, without understanding legislative processes, could weaken democracy.
“When people do not understand their legislature, democracy is at risk. Democracy is measured not by passion alone, but by principles,” he said.
The Senate President also recalled that the current Electoral Act enabled competitive elections in 2023, including major losses suffered by the then ruling party.
“This same Electoral Act made the incumbent party almost lose millions of votes. We lost in places like Lagos and Kano. New parties won whole regions with the same act, whether real-time electronic transfer or not,” he said.
He concluded that laws must be made for posterity rather than partisan interest.
“You don’t make law for an individual or for opposition. You make law to outlast you, for generations unborn,” Akpabio said.
Earlier, the National Chairman of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and former Senate President, Senator David Mark, who chaired the event, urged the National Assembly to pass the bill without speaking on behalf of INEC.
“What the ADC is saying is, pass the law. Let INEC decide whether they can do it or not. Don’t speak for INEC. The stand of ADC is clear; pass the bill and let INEC decide on what it will do with it,” Mark said.
Several speakers at the event, including Akwa Ibom State Governor, Pastor Umo Eno, and the book reviewer, Professor Maxwell Gidado, SAN, commended Senator Bob for his courage in documenting the challenges faced by Nigerian legislators.
In his remarks, the author, Senator Effiong Bob, listed the challenges confronting lawmakers to include intense electoral battles, conflicts with governors and political godfathers, judicial reversals of election victories, pressure to resolve private issues of constituents, and self-inflicted challenges.
“The courage to defend democracy is in the legislature and the legislators,” he said.
