Real-time Results Transmission Successful In Over 105 Off-cycle Elections In 2022, Says Mike Igini

… Says network coverage concerns are excuses

A former electoral commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Barr. Mike Igini, has picked holes in the argument for the adoption of electronic and manual transmission of election results, stressing that it is largely an excuse and completely specious.

In a statement yesterday, Igini urged the National Assembly to jettison the provision for manual transmission of election results, in addition to electronic transmission, as recently passed by the Senate.

The former INEC commissioner recalled a survey by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the National Communications Commission (NCC) on network coverage of both 2G and 3G in 2022, which revealed over 97 per cent coverage across Nigeria.

He added that it was based on the survey that the commission carried out E-transmission of polling units’ results to IREV successfully in real time in over 105 off-cycle elections, including five governorship elections before the 2023 elections.

“Network concerns are therefore largely excuses and completely specious,” he said.

Igini further recalled that as the Resident Electoral Commissioner for Cross River State in 2012, INEC under Professor Attahiru Jega carried out a successful real-time E-transmission pilot for the conduct of the second-term election of Governor Liyel Imoke.

He said, “It was viewed on a dashboard in my office as collated results from the 18 local government areas were transmitted and updated across the state successfully.”

The former INEC chief added that the problem has always been state capture and state sabotage, coupled with the courts’ strange and questionable refusal to give effect to the laws.

This lapse by custodians of the law has encouraged election manipulation, he stated, adding that it was unbelievable that the judiciary refused to give effect to INEC’s regulatory authority to make its own rules and regulate its procedure in discharging its duties.

“Above all, under the 1999 Constitution, INEC’s regulatory authority in Section 160 to make its own rules and regulate its procedure in discharging its duties is unimpeachable, in addition to its power under Section 148 of the Act to issue binding regulations and guidelines.

“The refusal of the court to give effect to it is simply unbelievable. The first alteration was introduced by President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to enhance the independence of the executive body as an umpire, unlike others created under Section 153 of the Constitution,” he said.

He further warned that many members of the current National Assembly may become victims if they refuse to ensure that election results are mandatorily and solely transmitted electronically.

Igini noted that former lawmakers who refused to pass laws that supported credible and transparent elections ended up being victims of a process which reduced them to supplicants rather than autonomous stakeholders, beholden to executive whims at the federal and state levels.

He said, “Those earlier Assemblies, for reasons of convenience and party loyalty, refused to address well-documented election rigging vulnerabilities in our electoral laws, like the very proviso now introduced by the Senate, to qualify direct electronic transmission.

“Such lacunae were exploited to subvert polling-unit outcomes during their tenure by those who denied them re-election party tickets, rendering them victims of the very defects they declined to remedy or introduce into the Act,” he said.

The former national commissioner added that Nigerians and indeed incumbent legislators, particularly those who have demonstrated competence, independence and legislative proficiency deserving of re-election, require this safeguard more acutely than any other cohort for legislative institutional capacity building.

According to him, the statistical table of analyses of legislative turnover reveals a persistently alarming attrition rate across both chambers of the National Assembly, which underscores the systemic vulnerability of legislators to a manipulable electoral process, as deliberate loopholes are created in the laws, as evidenced by past failures to do the right thing.

“I, therefore, implore the National Assembly to remove/excise the proviso and restore the original, unequivocal provision for direct, real-time electronic transmission as previously passed. I equally call upon the judiciary, my constituency, not to make itself the weakest link in the line of defence of our democracy and the rule of law.

“The facts of the alarming rate of legislators’ turnover are incontrovertible. The imperatives are clear. Let wisdom prevail over expediency, convenience and party loyalty lest history repeat its tragic verdict upon yet another Assembly,” he said.