Senator Onyekachi Nwaebonyi, who represents Ebonyi North, has said the National Assembly’s recent amendment of the Electoral Act has sealed the gaps that once allowed election rigging.
Speaking on ARISE Television on Wednesday, he explained that the new law makes electronic transmission of results compulsory and now carries more authority than INEC’s existing guidelines.
Leading with the Senate’s position on the amendment, the lawmaker said, “nobody can rig election in Nigeria” under the new arrangement.
According to him, the key distinction between the 2022 Electoral Act and the latest amendment lies in how electronic transmission of results is now provided for in the law itself.
“The difference between the Electoral Act of 2022 and what we are doing now, and which will make the decision of the court different from what happened in INEC versus Atiku, which is a very popular case, as far as this electronic transmission of votes is concerned, is that this time, the National Assembly have inserted it in our law,” the lawmaker said.
He explained that the language of the amendment makes the provision compulsory.
“And the word there is ‘shall’, not ‘may’. That is the difference,” he added.
Nwaebonyi further argued that the new Electoral Act would override any conflicting operational guidelines issued by INEC, including those relating to the use of the Result Viewing Portal (IREV).
“And moreover, the Electoral Act overrides the INEC guideline. If there is conflict between the guideline and the Act, the Act is an Act of the parliament. The guideline is a guideline of the agency. So the Electoral Act supersedes the guideline,” the senator said.
The Ebonyi lawmaker maintained that the amendment would fundamentally change the legal context in which future election disputes are determined, particularly in relation to electronic transmission of results.
“So with what we have done now, nobody can rig election in Nigeria,” he said.
He, however, noted that the success of the reform would depend on the vigilance of political actors and stakeholders.
“All that is required is for all eyes to be on the ball by all political players,” the senator added.
The Senate had on Tuesday reconvened in an emergency session following public outcry over earlier changes to the Electoral Act, especially provisions on the transmission of election results and the status of INEC’s IREV portal.
