By Fred Chukwuelobe
I could stop at the headline because it captures exactly what the Senate did yesterday: it rejected real-time electronic transmission of election results from polling units to INEC’s Result Viewing Portal (IREV). In one stroke, the Senate voted against transparency and in favour of a system that rewards manipulation. Let’s call it what it is: an institutional endorsement of rigging.
If the opposition is serious about ever winning power, it should treat this moment as a five-alarm fire. By opposition, I mean every party not currently in power at state and federal levels. Sleep through this, and you might as well forget competitive elections.
I have long argued that what we practice in Nigeria is not democracy but civilian rule. Our institutions exist, but they lack independence. The idea of bicameralism sounds grand on paper, but under our current constitutional reality, the legislature is rarely able – or willing – to check executive power. With rare and fleeting exceptions, state assemblies do not oppose governors. At the federal level, the National Assembly has become more of an annex of the executive than a co-equal arm of government.
What happened in the Senate confirms this. The House of Representatives passed the reform. But the Senate’s concurrence was required before the bill could be forwarded for presidential assent. The Senate – now firmly aligned with the Presidency – effectively killed it. The message is clear: reforms that threaten the comfort of incumbents will not pass. Although the senate is said to have based its decision on the issue of network access by remote areas, that, to me, is a lame excuse. Once there’s a will, there’s always a way .
This is tragic because Nigeria is desperately in need of deep electoral reform. Since independence, our elections have been plagued by rigging, intimidation, and post-election litigation. From one electoral umpire to another, we have tinkered at the edges without fixing the core problem. The introduction of technology – BVAS and IREV – offered a rare glimpse of hope. Real-time electronic transmission of results from polling units would drastically reduce tampering at collation centres, where elections are often “won” after votes have already been cast.
That hope has now been deliberately punctured.
Why? Because many senators know that in a truly free, fair, and transparent contest, they would struggle to retain their seats. Technology threatens the old playbook: ballot snatching, result doctoring, and late-night “adjustments” at collation centres. Blocking real-time transmission protects the status quo.
In the coming days, expect a media blitz. Commentators will split into camps. Legal minds will deploy big grammar to justify the Senate’s action. Public affairs programmes will be saturated with procedural arguments. Money will change hands. Narratives will be massaged. And in the end, the decision will likely stand.
The people will grumble – and still vote.
But the grumbling will not come from those who benefit from this charade we call democracy. It will come from those who have not yet been “invited to the table.” The tragedy is that this decision, if allowed to stand, further erodes public trust in our electoral system. When citizens stop believing their votes count, democracy hollows out from within.
The Senate has chosen opacity over openness, power over principle. In doing so, it has sent a dangerous signal: only those with the machinery to rig need apply.
NB: Fred Chukwuelobe, was a Special Assistant to former Governor of Anambra, Chris Ngige on Media and Publicity.
