SDP Tasks Senate On Election Results Transmission

The Social Democratic Party (SDP) has expressed concern over the resistance of the Senate leadership to the inclusion of electronic transmission of election results in the Electoral Act (Repeal and Enactment) Bill 2026.

In a statement released yesterday by Araba Rufus Aiyenigba, national publicity secretary of the party, SDP said the Senate’s stance was against the popular will of Nigerians who had expressed the desire for real-time transmission of election results through public hearings conducted by the Senate.

The party emphasised that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) were critical in enhancing transparency and preventing manipulation of results.

“INEC has demonstrated that it has the infrastructure, technical capacity, will and patriotic disposition to effectively transmit election results in real-time if the anti-democratic hawks would allow the commission to do its duties without any encumbrances,” Aiyenigba said.

SDP warned that the senate leadership must not hold the nation’s democracy to ransom and urged citizens, civil society groups and democrats to resist attempts to undermine the country’s electoral process.

The party called for an unambiguous legislative mandate on electronic transmission of results in real-time to ensure credible elections in 2027.

“The party’s demand is in line with the position of the majority of Nigerian citizens who want to move beyond the challenges of credible elections experienced in the 2023 general elections. We also believes that electronic transmission of results will reduce human errors and prevent manipulation of results during manual transportation by anti-democracy agents,” he said.

Aiyenigba noted that the new leadership of INEC had shown a positive disposition to incorporating integrity into the electoral process, anchored on transparency and credible elections.