Ex-REC Sounds Alarm: Lawmakers’ 2027 Seats Threatened by E-Transmission Provision

Mike Igini, a former attorney and Cross River State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), has cautioned that the contentious requirement for real-time electronic transmission of polling unit results may cost most federal parliamentarians their seats in 2027.

Igini claimed in a statement that previous Assemblies had refused to address “well-documented election rigging vulnerabilities” in the statute, such as the type of proviso currently proposed by the Senate to qualify direct electronic transmission, “for reasons of convenience and party loyalty.”

He asked the parliamentarians to learn from the mistakes of their forebears, who he claimed lost elections because they refused to fix well-known flaws in the country’s democratic system.

“I urge Honourable and Distinguished Senators to heed the salutary lessons from the misfortunes that befell their predecessors as the National Assembly convenes to reconcile the divergent versions of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, particularly with regard to the Nigerian populace’s unequivocal demand for mandatory electronic transmission of election results directly from polling units to the INEC Result Viewing Portal, IReV,” he said.

“Those who denied them re-election party tickets took advantage of these flaws to sabotage polling-unit results during their tenure, making them victims of the very flaws they refused to fix,” he continued.

The majority of incumbent lawmakers who were denied party tickets by governors and party leaders, even after obtaining alternative platforms, were defeated during collation through manipulation of polling unit results, according to Igini, who presented what he described as empirical evidence from electoral cycles between 2007 and 2023.

“This unfortunate trend is now dangerously close to being repeated by the 10th Assembly.Members who are not well-liked or in the good graces of their state governors or party leaders will undoubtedly be refused tickets, and it will be extremely difficult to convert even the strongest support from their constituents into an electoral victory, he warned, given the possibility of an unprotected electronic transmission of polling unit results.