A former Director-General of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, Mr Akin Osuntokun, has criticised the Senate\u2019s rejection of electronic transmission of election results, describing it as a major setback for Nigeria\u2019s democratic growth.<\/p>\n
Osuntokun, who recently joined the African Democratic Congress (ADC), remarked during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Friday in Lagos, while reacting to the Senate\u2019s decision to exclude e-transmission from the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2026 passed on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Osuntokun said,\u00a0\u201cIt does not portend well for the growth of democracy in Nigeria. Anything that makes elections less accountable makes the election less credible.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The former managing director of the News Agency of Nigeria argued that the rejection of electronic transmission compromises electoral transparency and weakens accountability in the system.<\/p>\n \u201cThe growth of democracy is rooted in accountability and the integrity of elections. So far as the elections that are conducted on that basis will not meet the bar of a credible election, it becomes an obstruction to democratic consolidation,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n He described the decision as suspicious, suggesting that it may be a deliberate attempt to leave room for electoral manipulation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe logical interpretation of what they have done is that they want to contrive avenues where the elections can be manipulated,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n Osuntokun further faulted the Senate\u2019s justification for rejecting the amendment, saying there is no credible explanation for the decision.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is the explanation? There is no tenable explanation for what they have done. Using e-transmission makes the election or the counting of votes less susceptible to manual interference.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWhat we have been told is that any intervention that will make the election less amenable to manipulation, they do not want it,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0he added.<\/p>\n While expressing concern over public distrust in the process, Osuntokun said the Senate\u2019s action may not lead to voter apathy, but rather increased vigilance at polling units.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat people will do when they go to vote is to physically remain there. They will show as much as possible that the votes that are counted are votes that were duly cast,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n He, however, warned that such distrust could lead to heightened tensions at collation centres.<\/p>\n He cautioned,\u00a0\u201cIf voters have this kind of mentality and distrust that the system is being deliberately manipulated, it will provoke anger, suspicion, and physical interference at the collation level.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIt may not affect turnout, but it could foster indignation and more aggressive participation to ensure that their vote counts.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The Senate on Wednesday passed the Electoral Act 2022 (Repeal and Re-enactment) Amendment Bill 2026 after the third reading, but rejected a proposed amendment to Clause 60, Subsection 3, which sought to make electronic transmission of results mandatory.<\/p>\n Lawmakers opposing the proposal cited technical and logistical limitations, especially concerning nationwide implementation, as reasons for their position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A former Director-General of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, Mr Akin Osuntokun, has criticised the Senate\u2019s rejection of electronic transmission of election results, describing it as a major setback for Nigeria\u2019s democratic growth....<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10480,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10478\/revisions\/10480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}