Empirical data guided our decision on electoral bill – Senate

The Senate has reeled out empirical data that guided its decision to make the electronic transmission of election results discretionary rather than mandatory in the ongoing reform of our country’s electoral governance framework.

The upper chamber added that the decision was based on the stark realities of the country and not on emotions or sentiment after due consultation and engagement with principal actors in the country’s communications and power sectors, among others.

Leader of the Senate, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele clarified the position of the upper chamber by his Directorate of Media and Public Affairs on Sunday, saying law-making “comes with huge obligations globally, and the Senate cannot discharge such responsibilities to the detriment of the citizenry.”

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The Senate had resolved against Clause 60(3) of the Electoral Bill, 2026. In specific terms, the clause stipulates that the presiding officer “shall electronically transmit the results from each polling unit to INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) in real time…”

The Senate subsequently reviewed the contentious clause to further strengthen the electronic transmission of results consistent with public demand, though with a caveat that in the event of Internet failure, Form EC8A will serve as the primary means of result collation.

In his statement on Sunday, Bamidele observed that Clause 60(3) of the Electoral Bill, 2026 “is an initiative that any legislature or parliament globally will have embraced ordinarily,” citing its potential to deepen trust in the democratic institutions, especially the National Assembly and INEC.

However, Bamidele noted that the Senate looked at the other side of Clause 60(3) of the Electoral Bill 2026, revealing that the country’s communication and power infrastructure would not guarantee the real-time electronic transmission of election results as envisaged by some stakeholders.

Citing data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Bamidele said Nigeria had only achieved about 70% broadband coverage in 2025 while her Internet user penetration was only 44.53% of the population within the same timeframe.

Bamidele equally cited the Speedtest Global Index, which ranked Nigeria 85th out of 105 countries in mobile network reliability and 129th out of 150 countries in fixed Internet broadband reliability.

He further said: “Based on the Speedtest Global Index, Nigeria’s mobile network reliability was 44.14 megabits per second. This is extremely low compared with UAE that has 691.76 mbps; Qatar with 573.53 mbps; Kuwait’s 415.67mbps; Bahrain’s 303.21 mbps and Bulgaria’s 289.41 mbps. The Index placed Nigeria far below global average.

“Nigeria’s fixed internet broadband rating is quite low by the global standard. Out of 150 countries, Nigeria occupied 129th position with only 33.32 mbps. In this rating, Singapore came first with 410.06 mbps followed by 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, cited official data that revealed the state of the power infrastructure, indicating that at least 85 million Nigerians “still lack access to grid electricity. This figure amounts to about 43% 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.”

With these conditions of the country’s communication and power infrastructure, Bamidele doubted the practicability of the real-time electronic transmission of election results, noting that making such a provision mandatory could plunge the country into a crisis.

By the global standards, Bamidele said the real-time electronic transmission of election results “may not be practicable at this stage of our development. To avoid a situation that compounds our country’s woes, it is better we make it discretionary since Section 62(2) of the Electoral Act, 2022 has already established the National Electronic Register of Election Results.

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“All these facts were before us for consideration before we initially decided to retain Section 60(3 $ 5) of the Electoral Act, 2022 in the interest of people and security. The data speak directly to the stark realities of our federation and not the 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. These are huge obligations that the Constitution places upon us all, and we cannot discharge the responsibilities to the detriment of the citizenry.”

“In democracy, law-making sits at the heart of public governance. Indeed, it is its lifeblood that freely flows in the veins of all public institutions. It does not respond to mere emotion or sentiment, but to facts, proofs or realities that can define or distort the future of our political system. If our law does not capture the realities of the federation, then it is 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 while at the same time addressing the concerns of our people nationwide substantially. 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.”

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