The Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, has urged the National Assembly to heed the calls of Nigerians and adopt the position of the House of Representatives on election results transmission in the ongoing Electoral Act amendment.
A 24-member conference committee comprising lawmakers from both the Senate and the House of Representatives is currently meeting to harmonise their positions on the controversial provision.
The Senate version removes the “real-time” requirement for electronic transmission of results, allowing presiding officers to transmit results at their discretion. It also designates the manual Form EC8A as the primary source of results in the event of communication failure.
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In contrast, the House version mandates real-time electronic transmission of results — a provision civil society organisations and opposition parties argue would significantly reduce opportunities for manipulation and enhance transparency.
Speaking on Monday during an interview on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief, Itodo warned that it would be a missed opportunity if Nigeria fails to adopt mandatory electronic transmission of results.
“It’s important that the National Assembly listens to what Nigerians are saying. If they are elected to represent the interests of Nigerians, I see no reason why the position of the House of Representatives on this particular clause should not be adopted,” he said.
The Yiaga Africa boss maintained that once voting ends at the polling unit and results are recorded on Form EC8A, the presiding officer should immediately transmit the results electronically.
“Take an image of the result sheet, or the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) can be updated with software that enables the presiding officer to log in and upload the results, along with the accredited voter data, to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV),” he explained.
However, Itodo cautioned that attention should not be focused solely on results transmission at the polling unit, noting that significant manipulation often occurs at the collation level.
“It’s not just at the polling unit because a lot of manipulation happens at the collation level. Before a collation officer collates results, he or she needs to check what was transmitted from the polling unit on the IReV against the physical copy of the result.
“If there is a difference, it means that between the polling unit and the collation centre, the results have been altered. This is why electronic transmission of results is necessary,” he added.
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