Benjamin Okaba, global president of the IJaw National Congress, says that the Senate did not reject the electronic transmission of results but rejected accountability in elections.

“They argue, with compelling evidence, that this protects the incumbent and the powerful, and actively favours the architecture of rigging. Yet the Senate president, Godswill Akpabio, said the Senate did not reject e-transmission.

“A clever, legalistic deflection. They did not need to reject it. They merely ensured it remains vulnerable, discretionary, and legally weak. They retained the word while gutting its force. This is not a defence. It is a confession.

“This decision pours petrol on the flames of voter apathy. It tells the young, the hopeful, the reform-minded that the system is not serious about changing for you,” said Mr Okaba in an interview in Abuja on Friday.

He added, “The Senate rejected finality. They rejected the simple, powerful idea that the vote cast by the citizen in the sunlight should be the same vote that is counted at the end of the journey.

“They have, therefore, placed a heavier burden upon all of us. The fight for credible elections has just moved from the floor of the senate back to the polling units and the streets.”

He noted that the question before the Senate was not a technical one, not about servers, or 4G networks, or the cost of BVAS machines.

“The question put before the Senate and the answer they have now given is a profound one. Do we, as a nation, have the political will to irrevocably leash the monsters of electoral fraud that have haunted our democracy for generations?

“Their answer delivered is a deafening No. What they rejected was not a mere clause in a bill. They rejected a fundamental safeguard.

“They chose the comfort of the old, opaque ways over the demanding light of transparency. The senate’s choice is a retreat from electoral integrity on the eve of an election year,” Mr Okaba said.

The INC global president, however, said his reaction was not one of surprise but of profound disappointment.

“The moment the polling unit result is signed and announced to the people present, it is immediately uploaded to the INEC Results Viewing Portal.

“This creates an immutable, public digital fingerprint. The purpose is to make the will of the people, expressed at the polling unit, sacrosanct: to destroy the lucrative and corrupt industry of ‘collation arithmetic’ at the ward, local government, and state levels. 

“But the path the Senate chose to keep us on is discretionary and delayed transmission; that is, it remains at the discretion of INEC. The law provides no firm anchor,” Mr Okaba explained.

(NAN)