Abaribe Critiques Senate, Says Electoral Act Focuses Solely on Result Transmission

In its ongoing amendment to the Electoral Act, the Senate Minority Caucus has clarified that the Senate passed real-time broadcasting of election results from polling stations.

A proposal to require the Independent National Electoral Commission, or INEC, to electronically transmit all election results was reportedly rejected by the Senate on Wednesday.

Opposition MPs, including Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, and Natasha Akpoti, among others, stated at a news conference on Thursday that the motion was not turned down, emphasizing that the Senate passed results transmission rather than transfer.

On behalf of the opposition legislators, Abaribe told reporters, “We felt that it is necessary to clarify what happened yesterday to put the record straight.”

“The Senate failed to enact the 2022 Act, which was a transfer of outcomes, yesterday. We succeeded with the results transfer.

“I must clarify something. Under the confidence of their senatorial zones, each of us who has the honor of representing a senatorial district came here.

“We went into the closed-section to clean up everything so that we could pass it without any animosity when we returned to plenary.

I can guarantee you that Section 63, which deals with the electronic transmission of results, was approved by the Senate’s electoral committee, ad hoc committee, and executive session. Instead of transfer, we permitted transmission.

“What is in the 2022 Act is transfer, and we don’t want a law that is so ambiguous or that anyone may misunderstand it.

“We desire a legislation that is explicit, succinct, and clear. The results are transmitted electrically.