Amid mounting backlash over the proposed changes to the Electoral Act, African Democratic Congress (ADC) chieftain Kenneth Okonkwo has called on the Senate to entirely remove clauses permitting the manual transmission of election results.
Speaking on Tuesday during an appearance on Politics Today on Channels Television, Okonkwo insisted that results must be transmitted directly from polling units to curb manipulation.
“Once they put that law that you must transmit from the polling unit, I am okay. So any polling officer would not leave the polling unit,” the actor-turned politician said.
He further argued that elections should be annulled where electronic transmission fails.
According to him, “The House of Representatives should go further to say that where it is not possible to transmit from the polling unit, that election should be cancelled.”
Responding to concerns over whether cancelling an election due to failed electronic transmission would be fair, Okonkwo maintained that the entire electoral process revolves around credible results.
“The reason you are doing accreditation, voting is for the result. If you do all these things to get a fraudulent result, what have you gained? You have actually emboldened the criminals. The only problem we have in this country is fraudulent elections.
“On the day we have free and fair elections in Nigeria, 20 years after that, we would become a superpower nation. America is sustained Today because power lies with the people.”
He blamed Nigeria’s slow development on elections plagued by irregularities and stressed that democracy belongs to the people, not to any political party, whether ADC or the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Okonkwo called on citizens to collectively defend and sustain democratic governance in the country.
The controversy follows the passage of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill by the Senate last week, where lawmakers rejected the proposal for real-time electronic transmission of results under Clause 60(3).
However, they retained provisions from the 2022 Act granting the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) discretion over how results are transmitted.
The decision sparked outrage from opposition figures, who warned that it could weaken Nigeria’s democratic process. Protests were also staged at the National Assembly.
In response to the backlash, the Senate on Tuesday reviewed its position and approved electronic transmission of results, removing the “real-time” requirement.
It also ruled that in cases of poor internet connectivity, Form EC8A would serve as the primary document for result collation.
During an emergency plenary session, lawmakers set up a committee to reconcile the Senate’s version of the bill with that of the House of Representatives, following public discontent over some of the proposed amendments.