The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has condemned the Senate’s inclusion of a manual result transmission clause in the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, describing it as a “backdoor move” capable of weakening ongoing electoral reforms and undermining the credibility of elections in Nigeria.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Ini Ememobong, said it was illogical to suggest that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), which functions effectively for voter accreditation, would suddenly fail during the transmission of election results.
The Senate had, following sustained protests by opposition figures and civil society groups, approved the electronic transmission of election results to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s Result Viewing Portal (IReV), while allowing manual collation only as a fallback in cases of technological failure.
Prominent figures who protested the earlier position of the Senate include the Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, former Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi, and other concerned Nigerians.
The Senate’s decision came after it revisited a controversial clause in the Electoral Act Amendment Bill during an emergency plenary session held on Tuesday.
Reacting, the PDP accused the Senate of acting without genuine commitment, urging the Conference Committee to adopt the version of the bill earlier passed by the House of Representatives as the harmonised framework for the 2027 general elections.
“We have taken note of the Senate’s reconsideration of its earlier stance on real-time electronic transmission of results, where an addendum was introduced to permit manual transmission whenever technology is said to fail,” the party stated.
“We firmly believe this addendum is nothing more than a backdoor attempt to achieve the same objective as the earlier outright rejection, while pretending to align with the wishes of Nigerians.”
The party noted that provisions for manual transmission already exist in the Electoral Act, stressing that the demand for electronic transmission is intended to provide an additional layer of authentication that prevents the manipulation of results before collation.
According to the PDP, “It is inconceivable that the same BVAS technology that successfully handles accreditation throughout an election would suddenly become unreliable for transmitting results and accreditation data arising from that same process.”
The party further alleged that resistance to electronic transmission was driven by fear among some senators, singling out Senate President Godswill Akpabio, whom it claimed remained unsettled by his 2019 electoral loss, which was influenced by the deployment of technology to curb over-voting.
The PDP warned that Nigeria’s democratic future should not be sacrificed for personal or political interests.
“We urge members of the Conference Committee to adopt the House of Representatives’ version of the bill if they are truly committed to delivering credible elections in 2027,” the statement added.
“They must rise above the instincts of politicians obsessed with the next election and instead focus on sustaining democracy and protecting future generations.”
The party also called on Nigerians to remain steadfast in demanding real-time electronic transmission of election results, insisting that the country’s democracy is too valuable to be left solely in the hands of politicians.
