Isaac Samuel
With political calculations for 2027 already underway, a quiet but consequential legal fault line may be forming beneath Nigeria’s electoral framework.
Indeed, a close reading of the Electoral Act 2026 reveals drafting inconsistencies that could become explosive in a tightly contested presidential or governorship race.
The tension lies in the uneasy coexistence between electronic transmission of results and the continued primacy of manual collation.
According to section 60(3) of the amended Electoral Act,, “The Presiding Officer shall electronically transmit the results from each polling unit to IREV portal and such transmission shall be done after the prescribed Form EC8A has been signed and stamped by the Presiding officer and/or countersigned by the candidates or Polling agents where available at the Polling Unit.
“Provided that if the electronic transmission of the result fails as a result of communication failure and it becomes impossible to transmit the result contained in form EC8A signed and stamped by the Presiding Officer and countersigned by the candidates or polling agents where available at the polling unit, the form EC8A shall remain the primary source of collation and declaration of the result”.
While the Act mandates the electronic transmission of polling unit results, it simultaneously provides that the manually completed Form EC8A remains the primary source for collation and declaration.
In effect, the law appears to create two parallel evidentiary tracks without clearly establishing which prevails in the event of discrepancies. An analysis done by this medium shows that In a politically charged 2027 environment, that ambiguity could prove costly.
What this means is that if electronically transmitted results differ, even slightly from manually collated figures at ward, local government or state collation centres, candidates and parties may weaponise whichever version favours their position.
The absence of explicit legal hierarchy between digital and manual records could open the floodgates to conflicting interpretations, inconsistent administrative decisions and prolonged post-election litigation.
More critically, the drafting gap may shift the battleground from the polling unit where transparency is strongest to collation centres and courtrooms, where oversight thins and technical interpretations dominate.
It is against this backdrop that former senior officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have raised alarm.
President Bola Tinubu assented to the amended Electoral Act in 2026 amid sustained debate over the legal status of real-time transmission of polling unit results.
Former National Commissioner, Festus Okoye, in an interview told this medium that embedding specific technologies in statute without flexible drafting could create avoidable confusion.
Okoye who was chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee of the commission, said while the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) remains a very good and innovative device, the 2026 Act contains drafting inconsistencies that could create confusion in implementation.
He recalled that the Smart Card Reader was initially introduced through INEC guidelines but was not expressly recognised in the Electoral Act until the 2022 amendment.
According to him, the National Assembly has now replaced references to the Smart Card Reader with BVAS in some sections of the 2026 Act but failed to make the substitution uniformly across the law.
Okoye cautioned lawmakers against embedding specific technological names in statutes, arguing that technology evolves rapidly.
He said: “Where BVAS appears in the principal section, Smart Card Reader is still retained in other parts of the Act. The National Assembly needs to clean up the drafting to avoid ambiguity
“Don’t write a particular technology into the law. Allow the electoral body discretion to adopt appropriate technology at any given time. Each time technology changes, you cannot keep amending the Act”.
He explained that BVAS was designed as a multifunctional platform capable of voter registration, biometric accreditation, result upload and even future electronic voting if activated.
He, however, noted that while the device has the capacity for full electronic transmission of results, that function has not been fully operationalised.
Okoye argued that a careful reading of Sections 60 and 65 reveals two separate transmissions; one to IReV for public viewing and another to the collation system.
He cited Section 155, which defines “transmit” as sending manually or electronically, suggesting that the law provides room for both methods.
Okoye maintained that where discrepancies arise, electronically transmitted results to the collation system should carry greater weight if interpreted creatively and strategically.
“I am not factoring IReV into the equation of collation because the Supreme Court has defined it as a viewing portal. But the law also provides for transmission to the next level of collation, and we must interrogate that carefully,” he said.
Former INEC ICT Director, Engr. Chidi Nwafor, traced Nigeria’s technological electoral reforms to early digitised voter registration efforts in 2003 and the eventual introduction of biometric systems under former INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega.
He lamented what he described as political resistance to reforms, arguing that stakeholders often support technology when in opposition but frustrate it when in power.
Nwafor explained that BVAS was designed to accommodate voter registration, authentication, electronic voting and transmission, stressing that even when network fails, data captured on the device remains intact and can be synchronised once connectivity is restored.
“BVAS was not just designed for accreditation. It was designed as a comprehensive electoral device — registration, authentication, result upload, and even future electronic voting. We were thinking ahead.”
He dismissed claims that network failures render electronic transmission ineffective.
“Even if there is no network at the polling unit, the result captured on BVAS does not disappear. It remains stored securely on the device and transmits automatically once it detects connectivity. That is how it was engineered.
“The greatest obstacle to electoral technology in Nigeria is not technical weakness. It is political resistance. Those who oppose these systems today often supported them when they were not in power”, he said.
He recounted the political battles that trailed the introduction of the Smart Card Reader.
“We were summoned to defend the Smart Card Reader before lawmakers. Yet the same technology later became the reason some leaders acknowledged that elections were more credible. The irony is not lost on us.”
On the controversy over manual versus electronic results, he questioned the logic of prioritising paper over digital records.
“If a polling unit result uploaded electronically remains intact and traceable, and the manual copy is mutilated somewhere along the collation chain, common sense should tell us which one better preserves the will of the voters.”
Former Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mike Igini, described democracy as anchored on predictable, periodic, free and credible elections, warning that the proviso in Section 60(3) of the 2026 Act represents a regression.
Citing Section 160 of the 1999 Constitution, he argued that INEC has constitutional powers to regulate its own procedures and make binding guidelines.
He said the Supreme Court’s earlier characterisation of IReV as merely a viewing portal weakened public confidence in electronic transmission, adding that the new proviso that makes Form EC8A the primary source of collation could override the gains made through technology.
“The purport of a proviso is to create an exception. By subordinating electronic transmission to manual forms, we risk backsliding from the electoral thresholds we have crossed,” he said.
Igini insisted that electronic transmission should be central to Nigeria’s democratic architecture, arguing that real-time transmission enhances transparency, reduces human error and strengthens public trust.
Programs Director of Yiaga Africa, Cynthia Mbamalu, defended the role of BVAS and real-time upload of polling unit results, stressing that the polling unit remains the most transparent stage of the electoral process.
She explained that BVAS performs three key functions: biometric accreditation, capturing and uploading Form EC8A to IReV, and transmitting accredited voter data to the collation level.
“At the polling unit, results are in their purest form because you have voters, party agents, observers and media present. Oversight is strongest there. Once you move to collation centres, that level of oversight reduces,” she said.
According to her, real-time upload simply means capturing and transmitting results immediately after counting and completion of Form EC8A, in full view of stakeholders, irrespective of network challenges.
On his part, Director of ICT at the Nigerian Society of Engineers, Engr. Oluwadara Oluwalana, pointed to network limitations as a practical challenge to seamless electronic transmission.
Citing reports from the Nigerian Communications Commission and the Universal Service Provision Fund, he noted that while 2G coverage stands at about 93 per cent, 3G and 4G coverage remain below full national penetration.
“For effective transmission of clear images and data, at least 3G should be the minimum requirement. Compressed images over weaker networks may defeat the objective of clarity and transparency,” he said.
He called for a comprehensive technical audit involving INEC, NCC and professional bodies to address infrastructure gaps before full-scale electronic transmission is implemented nationwide.
