Electoral Bill: Senate, Reps Differ on Real-Time Result Transmission

The Senate has approved electronic transmission of election results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IREV) but declined to include a requirement for real-time upload, creating a key difference with the House of Representatives and triggering a harmonisation process between the two chambers.

The decision followed a review of Clause 60(3) of the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill 2026 during a tense plenary. Senators revisited the provision after adopting the Votes and Proceedings of the February 4 sitting when the bill passed third reading.

Under the Senate’s revised clause, presiding officers must electronically transmit results from each polling unit to IREV after completing, signing and stamping Form EC8A, with countersignatures by candidates or polling agents where available. Where communication failure makes electronic upload impossible, the signed Form EC8A becomes the primary source for collation and declaration of results.

The House version, passed in December, directs INEC to transmit results to IREV in real time, simultaneously with physical collation. It also requires presiding officers to transmit the number of accredited voters to the next level of collation.

Because the two chambers adopted different wordings, a conference committee will reconcile the versions before the bill is forwarded for presidential assent.

Outside the National Assembly, protesters gathered for the second consecutive day to demand real-time electronic transmission. Among them was former Rivers State Governor and immediate past Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi. Security personnel prevented the protesters from entering the complex.

Inside the chamber, proceedings became unsettled when Senate Chief Whip Mohammed Tahir Monguno moved a motion to rescind the earlier decision on the clause while the Senate President was reading procedural rules. Some senators questioned whether a decision already taken in the same legislative session could be revisited. A voice vote allowed the motion to proceed.

Monguno said public concern over the earlier wording, particularly the use of “transfer” versus “transmission,” required clarification. He proposed the revised clause mandating electronic upload to IREV with a fallback to the paper result form where transmission fails.

After the motion was seconded by Senator Abba Moro, disagreement over the voice vote led Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe to call for a division. He later withdrew the request. Senate President Godswill Akpabio ruled that the withdrawal stood and upheld the voice vote.

To speed up reconciliation with the House, the Senate expanded its conference committee from nine to 12 members to match the House delegation. Senator Simon Bako Lalong chairs the panel.

Akpabio urged the committee to conclude its work quickly, saying the President could sign the amended bill within the month if harmonisation is completed in time.

If enacted in its final form, the amendment would provide statutory backing for the use of IREV in result transmission, addressing a legal gap identified after the 2023 elections when courts ruled that the portal did not have binding legal status for collation or evidence in election petitions.

Reactions to the Senate’s position were mixed. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar said electronic transmission would reduce confusion but argued that anything short of real-time upload falls below public expectations. He urged opposition parties to press for the House version during harmonisation.

The African Democratic Party said reforms without mandatory real-time transmission would not restore public confidence. The African Democratic Congress described the Senate’s revised position as a response to civic pressure. Former Nigerian Bar Association President Olisa Agbakoba said only clear statutory backing for real-time electronic upload would close evidentiary gaps exposed in 2023.

A faction of the Peoples Democratic Party rejected the Senate’s approach, arguing that allowing a manual fallback where technology fails weakens the reform and undermines the purpose of electronic transmission.

The Electoral Act 2022 required results to be transferred “in a manner prescribed by the Commission,” wording that left room for interpretation. The Senate’s amendment now specifies electronic upload to IREV but stops short of mandating real-time transmission. Whether the final law will require real-time upload will depend on the outcome of the conference committee’s harmonisation with the House version.